SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS OF THE CONSUMPTION OF TOBACCO, ALCOHOL AND OTHER DRUGS

Drug use is one of the major public health problems in the world, currently its use and abuse are among the main causes of morbidity and mortality, in this sense the present work addresses the social representation of drug use, due to the need to know in depth the way in which individuals construct a common meaning to consumption, determined in many occasions by the position and context in which they develop and with this give the possibility to create or improve existing programs to intervene in a more effective way according to the specific needs of each individual. In the first instance, a definition of social representations and their main characteristics is given, later the social representations of the consumption of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs are presented, to give some final considerations.