The biographical approach: A better way to understand behaviour in health and illness

Abstract

In research on health and illness, studies using a narrative approach are gaining ground in a context where a statistical quantitative approach as well as an ‘objective’ approach to illness have dominated for decades. This can be interpreted as a shift from an objective to a subjective and social concept of risk. Against this background, this editorial argues that the biographical approach provides important opportunities to enhance understanding of the individual's management of risk and uncertainty in health and illness.

Keywords:

• Biography
• risk
• uncertainty
• narrative interview
• biographical structuring
• biographical resource

Notes

¹ There is a range of different biographical concepts available in biographical research. Here an approach is proposed which provides a comparatively well developed instrument for interviewing and analysing the interview-data (Rosenthal 2004).

² The classic study of Elder (1974) has already shown how family-background, life-stage and other factors mediate between social change and the individual's experiences of such a change.