Social Practices and Health Risks

Risk implies choices over different scenarios to avert future harm. In parallel to the norms formulated on predictions defining a preferred course of action, personal responsibility toward health is regularly emphasized. The analysis of how recommendations reflecting risk evidence are actually endorsed, or not, by individuals provides insights into the respective role of social structures and their agency. In their health practices, people and communities indeed express various forms of autonomy when they select which risks they want to avoid and which ones they are ready to take or ignore. I examine the range of justifications they use to align with or to question public health recommendations. These include references to pleasure, moderation, a sense of personal immunity, and critiques of institutions, which helps us understand the multiple forms of practical responses adopted in the face of health risks.