Perceiving health and the environment: Connections, conceptions, and cognition

Abstract

The present study is an exploratory qualitative analysis of public perceptions of health and the environment. In-depth interviews were employed to examine perceptions of the connection between health and the environment amongst a sample of men and women of both higher and lower socio-economic status in Greater Hamilton, Ontario. The study attempts to highlight the nature of health and environment perceptions in lay publics, the variations in perceptions of health and environment within and across social groups, as well as plausible reasons for these variations in perceptions according to cognitive information processing, value orientations, and cultural models. Variations in perceptions of the connection between health and the environment were seen to exist across social groups, namely by gender and socio-economic status. Differences in perceptions amongst those in the sample result from a myriad of possible factors ranging from social characteristics to personality traits to information processing networks. While health was largely perceived to be concrete and personalized, the environment was largely abstract and nebulous. Health was clearly articulated by those in the sample, while environment was less well-understood. Perceptions of the connection between health and environment were articulated usually with reference to the self, seemingly significant through possible threats to health. Health was viewed as under personal control through lifestyle choices, however, the environment was perceived to be external and not within the control or responsibility of individuals. A dichotomy in the form of “health is me” and “environment is external”, representing power, control, and responsibility and nested in social values and normative frameworks, became implicit in the findings. Social cognition research was employed to account for variations in interpretation of information related to health and the environment in order to account for differences in perceptions. Cognitive structures were then employed in an attempt to locate perceptions of health and the environment with value orientations from within a cultural or mental model of these connections.