Sustainability and the Social Representation of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Missing Link

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance for countries to preserve a sustainable health system. Unfortunately, the emergency nature of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to economic and social disasters, putting global health at risk. Thus, through the Social Representation Theory, our aim is to replicate a previous study carried out in Brazil in mid-2020 on how Brazilian society has perceived the significance of the COVID-19 pandemic in order to investigate whether this perception changed almost a year after the publication of the former study. The results show that the perception of Brazilian society about the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil was, at the end of 2021, mainly shaped by the political polarization that existed at the time in the country. Thus, politics and government, social distancing, death, and fear were the categories that composed the central nucleus of the social representation of the COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, categories such as economy and employment and changes and the new normal were mentioned less. Surprisingly, the sustainability category was practically disregarded by Brazilians, thus constituting a missing link. In this way, with this research, we hope to contribute to a better understanding of this scenario, expanding the understanding of how society’s interpretation of the COVID-19 pandemic in an emerging country such as Brazil has changed over time. Finally, understanding the dynamics of society’s perception of the COVID-19 pandemic can contribute to better planning of local initiatives, both at a managerial and public levels, with the aim of mitigating this and other possible future pandemics in a sustainable way.