Belief systems and social circumstances influencing the health choices of people in Lochaber

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Abstract
This paper reports findings from a small exploratory study carried out in 1991/2 in the Scottish Highlands. In-depth qualitative and ethnographic methods were used to gain insight into the ways in which people living locally conceptualised and explained health. The motivations and reason ings underpinning individual choices relevant to health promoting be haviour were examined in the context of local cultural and social circumstances. Informants' accounts of health-relevant behaviours and choices indicated that these were influenced both by the meanings attached to health (lay concepts), and by explanations of why some people were healthier than others (lay explanations). The study demonstrated that health choices were not made on the basis of a simple cost/benefit analysis in which indisputable and measurable health risks were weighed against identifiable and certain health benefits. Making health promoting choices required the weighing up of a large number of variables, many of which were unquantifiable. Thus, for many informants the 'correct' health choices were difficult to identify, let alone achieve.