Social representations of COVID-19 during and after the health emergency in México

Abstract

Objective: To analyze the social representations of COVID-19 during and after the health emergency among adults from San Luis Potosí and other states.

Materials and Methods: An exploratory study with a free association approach was carried out through questionnaires administered to 248 people at two points in time: 2020 (148 participants) and 2024 (100 participants). Data were processed using lexical, prototypical, and similarity analyses to identify the frequency of evocations and the organization of central and peripheral elements.

Results: During the pandemic, the most frequent evocations were disease, pandemic, and death, which, along with other terms, formed five representational nodes. Subsequently, the most associated words were virus, disease, and pandemic, organized into four representational nodes. In both periods, disease remained a central element of social representations, showing strong connections with other evocations.

Conclusions: These findings reveal that the pandemic was not only conceived as a biomedical phenomenon but also as a process with significant psychosocial repercussions. It is essential to integrate the social and emotional dimensions into health policies, particularly mental health, with sustained post-pandemic actions adapted to local contexts.

Keywords: Social Representation, COVID-19, Mexico, Mental Health.