Santé et environnement : analogie dans les approches sociologiques

Abstract

Health and environment: analogy in the sociological approach. This text is based on the idea that a number of parallels can exist in social sciences between research questions relating to health and those relating to the environment. To embody this intuition we will rely on a recent overview of texts on the subject of health, which can be categorized following three themes not totally disconnected. (1) Health and the environment are based largely on collective representations which, whilst remaining vague, are nonetheless socially effective. (2) A second theme is that of prevention, which is equally essential in the areas of health and the environment. (3) Finally, the adopted perspective leads to underline the essential role of science and scientists in both these areas as well as it stresses the necessity to characterize more thoroughly the dynamics at hand. Recent concepts in sociology can help to reach this aim.

Keywords

• Public health
• environment
• social representation
• prevention
• role of science