[Social representations about occupational risk in the perspective of the health worker]. / Representações sociais sobre o risco ocupacional na perspectiva do trabalhador da saúde.

We aimed to identify the meanings constructed about occupational risk by health workers through the structural approach to social representation. 220 health professionals from a public hospital in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, participated in this research. The technique of free evocation of words was used and data were examined through an articulated analysis of frequency average and evocation order Results shows that central systems have different compositions in three groups: disease and death for doctors, perforating and danger for nurses and contamination, disease, infection and danger for dentists. The complexity of bond among work and risk suggests that strategies and alternatives of actions might be operationalized with integration of different professional categories and fields of knowledge towards a common objective starting from an interdisciplinary space and expanding the awareness level of these professionals concerning to consequences of their practices to health.

[Thinking health under the perspective of Brazilian immigrants living in Portugal]. / Pensando a saúde na perspectiva dos imigrantes brasileiros em Portugal.

This study aimed at determining the social representations on health and immigrants constructed by Brazilians. Samples consisted of one hundred Brazilian male and female immigrants living in Lisbon, Portugal. The technique of free evocation, which uses as inductive words "health "and "immigrant", were used for data collection. Data were submitted to analyses using the software EVOC (Ensemble de Programmes Permettant L'analyse des Evocations). We detected the presence of the psycho-affective and social-interaction dimensions as to health, whereas as to "immigrant", individuals related it to a difficult experience that generates pain, prejudice, and homesickness, where the love for the family are the reason to immigrate to obtain better life conditions.