[Knowledge of attitudes and expectations: a prerequisite for effective health education]

Some global results are presented here several studies of psychosociology conducted in Lorraine; they deal with attitudes and expectations of the people about their health and are obtained from a special factor analysis. This method, of a descriptive nature, allows us to understand the pluridimensional universe of some of the representations considered and particularly to determine how each representation is connected with the others and how they are assembled within the whole system so as to establish typologies. The observation is made, notably by means of 2 projections on situational maps, that axis 1 establishes a bi-polarity among the wider tendencies such as medecine, physicians, health which corresponds, roughly speaking, to an opposition between "some collar" workers and "white collar" cadres, fatalists and non-fatalists. Less clearly appears a double splitting within the group of cadres and whtin the group of workers, the latter being less favored in the field of medicine and health. We can thus perceive 4 sectors where constellations of variables are organized and which correspond to typologies of attitudes. In fact, whether we rely on socio-professional stratifications or on mentalities, we must, to be efficient, take into account associations of attitudes as well as expectations, constructed according to this method, before starting selective actions of health education.