ABSTRACT
In recent years there has been increasing interest in lay ideas of health and illness in industrial societies, and the influence of such ideas on preventive health-and illness-related behaviour. To date, only a limited number of studies have been carried out in this area. Many of these have been small and exploratory in nature and have varied in terms of time, location, sample populations and research aims and perspectives. Consequently, it is difficult to undertake any systematic comparison of findings, or to be confident about identifying which ideas are the most important and general in their distribution, or associated with specific groups within the population.
