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Exploring consumers' health meaning categories: towards a health consumption meaning model
Author(s) -
Luomala Harri T,
Paasovaara Rami,
Lehtola Katariina
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of consumer behaviour
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.811
H-Index - 43
eISSN - 1479-1838
pISSN - 1472-0817
DOI - 10.1002/cb.178
Subject(s) - meaning (existential) , consumption (sociology) , sociology , marketing , psychology , social psychology , advertising , business , social science , psychotherapist
AbstractHealth marketplace offers a lucrative business for many companies. However, there is a gap in consumer research in understanding what health as a target of consumption really means to consumers. The subtleties and multiplicity of meanings rural and urban (both younger and older) consumers attach to health in their everyday lives are empirically explored in this article. Findings of a focus group interview‐based interpretive analysis are reported. It was found that meanings consumers associate with health are profound and multi‐faceted (identification of several health‐meaning categories) with some evidence for age‐ and area‐of‐ residency‐related health‐meaning differences. The article is concluded by advancing theory‐building in consumer research in the form of developing a tentative framework model that can be used to analyze health consumption meanings. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.