using choose function with wherecontains in a record to display color based on condition.

Agree with the other posts here.  This is essentially how I would typically implement, it also allows you to set a default with index() in the off chance you get a status you don't expect, an error will not be generated:

a!localVariables(
  local!index: index(wherecontains({fv!row[aRecord.status]},cons!STATUSES),1,1),
  
  choose(local!index,"SECONDARY", "SECONDARY", "SECONDARY", "POSITIVE", "NEGATIVE", "STANDARD")
)

Agree with the other posts here.  This is essentially how I would typically implement, it also allows you to set a default with index() in the off chance you get a status you don't expect, an error will not be generated:

a!localVariables(
  local!index: index(wherecontains({fv!row[aRecord.status]},cons!STATUSES),1,1),
  
  choose(local!index,"SECONDARY", "SECONDARY", "SECONDARY", "POSITIVE", "NEGATIVE", "STANDARD")
)

Thanks you all for the replies, I will try and report back later.

Wouldn't it be easier to use displayvalue() here. Something like this should do it

displayvalue(
  fv!row[aRecord.status],
  cons!STATUSES,
  {"SECONDARY", "SECONDARY", "SECONDARY", "POSITIVE", "NEGATIVE", "STANDARD"},
  "STANDARD"
)

thank you all for your answers. turned out to be the wrong constant because of two with almost identical names. Did also implement the local var, and the index default value. @Stefan will give your displayvalue solution a try as well.