Construção social do risco: um estudo de caso da epidemia de cólera no bairro Polana Caniço “A”

Abstract

This monograph aims to understand the relationship between perceptions formed about around the cholera and the determination of risk factors. This objective arises because the idea that the individuals perceptions construct about cholera influence the determination of risk factors, as the vision they have of the disease results from the life experiences and other experiences that go with the epidemic throughout their lives. Thus, for the analysis of the results collected in the field, we use the phenomenological constructivist theory of Berger and Luckmann. We stick in this approach because of this theory basing from the principle that the knowledge that individual forms about the social reality is a result of a social construction where thought and social context emerge as important elements in this process. In order to understand the construction of perceptions around cholera and determination of risk factors, we rely primarily to the qualitative methodology, by the fact of constituting a relevance to the beliefs, ideas, and feelings of individuals in the interpretation of social reality. According to the data analysis, we can conclude that the way how the society typifies the cholera, makes the individuals to ascribe the occurrence of the disease to external factors. This attribution arises from the experiences and beliefs formed around the cholera, leading to non- acceptance by individuals from individual risk factors that are made by specialists or doctors as relevant to the occurrence of the disease. Thus, depending on the negligence of the individual factors, the occurrence of cholera is perceived as a natural phenomenon that emerged from the conditions imposed by the society and it can affect all individual since they are not able to protect themselves