Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book aims to form a very interesting study of the understandings of an Irish coastal community and the impact that the Sellafield nuclear power and reprocessing plant has upon their health. It illustrates how lay understandings of health can differ in different countries, in this case between people living in Helsinki and Moscow. The book examines the ways in which Chinese people in Britain differentially use Chinese and western medicine and how their understandings of health shape those interactions. It discusses a variation on the theme in which how lay people operationalise their understandings into resistance and political pressure. The book focuses on lay people's resistance to vaccinations. There are now many diverse strands within the constructivist debate in relation to health and illness.