Health and Disease

11 Key excerpts on "Health and Disease"

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  eBook - ePub

  Epidemiology Foundations

  The Science of Public Health

  • Peter J. Fos(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Jossey-Bass

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER 3 Health and Disease

  LEARNING OBJECTIVES On completing this chapter, you will be able to

  Discuss what is meant by health Discuss what is meant by disease Describe the distinction between Health and Disease Describe the natural history of disease Discuss the general concept of causal relationships

  Definitions 36 Distinction Between Health and Disease 37 Disease Progression 39 Cause and Effect 43 Summary 49

  Definitions

  Health is something that seems easy to identify and measure. We can take our temperature to see if we have a fever. We can get blood tests to determine disease. But what about quality of life? How is it measured? In this chapter, we will discuss what is meant by health and the notion of health-related quality of life. Should more attention be given to how Health and Disease affect our everyday life, and not on measuring health test results? In this chapter, we will explore this question, but first, let’s define Health and Disease.

  Health

  The World Health Organization defines health as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.1 This definition was ratified during the first World Health Assembly and has not been changed since 1948. In 2000 Pope John Paul II offered a more comprehensive definition of health as “A dynamic tension towards physical, mental, social, and spiritual harmony, and not only the absence of illness, which gives man the ability to fulfill the mission which has been entrusted to him.”2

  Health has two aspects that influence it. The first is physical health, which is often referred to as physical fitness. Physical health is dependent on proper nutrition, exercise, and other healthy life behaviors. The other aspect of health is mental health. Mental health is defined as “A state of emotional and psychological well-being in which an individual is able to use his or her cognitive and emotional capabilities, function in society, and meet the ordinary demands of everyday life” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mentalhealth

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  Integrative Approaches for Health

  Biomedical Research, Ayurveda and Yoga

  • Bhushan Patwardhan, Gururaj Mutalik, Girish Tillu(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Academic Press

    (Publisher)

  [9] . This terminology illustrates that we do understand the real causes of many diseases, and we prefer to classify them into the ready-made categories, which perhaps do not accurately reflect the nature of the disorder, disease, or condition. Many new diseases are the result of the failure of current drug treatments, or of socioeconomic and environmental changes. For instance, drug-induced diabetes is actually not a disease, rather, it is a condition created by therapeutic interventions. Thus, the concept of disease has changed during last few decades.

  Definition of Health

  The WHO defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” [10] . However, in practice, there is no robust and reliable way to measure well-being . Generally, the absence of disease or infirmity is considered to be health . In many quarters, the terms health and medicine are used interchangeably, without an appreciation of the difference in meaning of the two words. Today’s health care revolves predominantly around medicine—primarily dealing with disease diagnosis and treatments, and not as much on prevention and health promotion. This mind-set has its roots in the misunderstanding of health.

  Many experts feel that the WHO definition of health is not complete without the inclusion of the spirituality component. The WHO definition highlights something like well-being that is difficult to measure, and hence health care decisions are being made based upon the apparent absence of disease. Moreover, modern definitions of health are mostly restricted to the body, and to some extent, the mind. However, the holistic picture of body/mind/spirit is completely missing in modern descriptions of health. The WHO have been discussing the concept of spiritual health, and several recent studies have endorsed its importance. In 1997, the WHO’s executive board resolved to recommend to the General Assembly of the United Nations, a new definition of health: “Health is a dynamic state of complete physical, mental, spiritual and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” A WHO’s spokesperson stated that “if we can find ways to approach practically the spiritual dimension of health, we may be able to alleviate and combat some of the pressures of modern life.”

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  Defining the Value of Medical Interventions

  Normative and Empirical Challenges

  • Jan Schildmann, Charlotte Buch, Jürgen Zerth, Jan Schildmann, Charlotte Buch, Jürgen Zerth, Elmar Nass, Jürgen Zerth(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Kohlhammer Verlag

    (Publisher)

  In this manner, according to the Biostatistical Theory , ‘health’ is defined by normal functioning, where what is normal is statistically deter-mined and functioning refers to biological functions. Furthermore, ‘disease’ consists of deviations from the species’ biological design, therefore, identifying ‘disease’ is considered a matter of natural sciences rather than an evaluative judgment. Thus, the overall rationale and assumptions underlying this defini-tion imply four main criteria: (1) definition of the reference class (an age group of a sex of a species), (2) definition of normal function within members (based on a statistically typical contribution to the individual survival and reproduc-tion), (3) definition of ‘health’ in a member of the reference class as a normal functional ability and (4) definition of ‘disease’ as an internal state which re-duces functional abilities below typical efficiency (Boorse, 1977). Spitzer and Endicott (1978), building on their previous work as members of the American Psychiatric Association Task Force on Nomenclature and Statis-tics (which suggested a largely criticised first definition of the concept of medi-cal and mental disorder in 1976), provide a revised definition of these concepts, which states that, a medical disorder is a relatively distinct condition resulting from an organismic dysfunction, which in its fully developed or extreme form is directly and intrinsi-cally associated with distress, disability, or certain other types of disadvantage. The disadvantage may be of a physical, perceptual, sexual, or interpersonal nature. Im-plicitly there is a call for action on the part of the person who has the condition, the medical or its allied professions, and society. A mental disorder is a medical dis-order whose manifestations are primarily signs or symptoms of psychological (be-havioural) nature, or if physical, can be understood only using psychological con-cepts.

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  Making Sense of Illness

  The Social Psychology of Health and Disease

  • Alan Radley(Author)
  • 1994(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  The point of making this distinction is to show that disease, illness and sickness do not stand in some kind of practical or theoretical vacuum. Instead, they have their independent meaning because they can be spoken about within different theoretical perspectives. At this stage of our discussion it is possible to see that, whatever the diagnostic and therapeutic power of medical knowledge, it cannot answer questions about illness and sickness, as we have been using these terms so far. This does not mean, of course, that medical knowledge and practice has no place in our account of health and illness. What it does mean is that the concepts of biomedicine cannot define the field of interest for a social science approach to the topic. Having said that, we shall see that what health professionals believe, and what they do, remain key to our understanding of illness experience and the social context of sickness. The relationship of health to illness It might be thought that health and illness are simply polar opposites, so that a person is either at one or other end of this dimension. In fact, this is not the case, as a brief analysis will demonstrate. Health refers to a state of being that is largely taken for granted. By this, I mean that being able to live one's life untroubled by pain or disease forms a background to everyday existence. Arguably, it is only when symptoms appear, or where a diagnosis of disease is made, that one's health is brought into question. Then it is the disease, the illness experience, the condition of being a sick person that we are aware of. And it is the shadow that this figure of illness casts upon the backcloth of health that gives the latter some shape in our consciousness. Only then do we know, at some remove as it were, what we have lost or what is at risk. Later on in the book I shall provide some evidence for these claims.

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  Ethnobotany: Medicinal Plants

  • Akansha Singh, Mohammad Waseemul Islam, Akansha Singh, Mohammad Waseemul Islam(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Delve Publishing

    (Publisher)

  This type of definition was only represented by the lack of disease and failed to include other attributes. This definition only recognized health in terms of whether or not an individual had a disease and it failed to account for Health and Illness as a State of Being Human 3 the well-being of an individual in a holistic manner. This definition of health makes the assumption that there is a dichotomy between health and illness and most scientists argued that this was not soin order to be considered as healthy, it is not necessary for a person to be completely free of disease but they will mostly have this disease to a lesser extent. This means that the absence of a disease is not strong enough evidence to prove the term one is in a healthy state. 1.1.2 The Concept of Health by the World Health Organization In the late 1940s, the World Health Organization developed a concept on health that was considered to be more holistic. They defined health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and this means it was not just about not having the disease. They did not restrict being healthy as merely having the absence or presence of a disease but rather they brought the concept of an individual having absolute or positive qualities (Munir Ozturk & Khalid Rehman Hakeem, 2018). Figure 1.1 . An illustration of WHO’s concept of health. Source: https://www.dreamstime.com/three-important-things-necessary-good-health-mental-social-physical-state-complete-well-being-not-merely-absence-image133392734 This view is an extension of the traditional view of health by conceptualizing health as a positive state of well-being of which physical health is only part of it. Alongside physical health there exist other aspects such as social, psychological, economic and political aspects. All these Ethnobotany: Medicinal Plants 4 aspects are included in their definition and are considered to be of paramount importance for health and wellbeing.

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  Challenges to Contemporary Medicine

  • Alan Gregg(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Columbia University Press

    (Publisher)

  38 What is the meaning of disease? Now that the unions are beginning to press for health protection and medical care as a part of workers' recom-pense, to be used for prepayment insurance, we face the nearly complete emergence of an attitude which is so differ-ent from the earlier animistic and religious concepts of disease as to call for careful reflection and continuing at-tention. Disease is now taken as a loss of health and strength, a loss whose likelihood is calculable for large numbers and thus adaptable to insurance procedures, a loss that can be either prevented, alleviated, or cured, and at least shared financially, and each of these activities can now be pursued with such a degree of efficiency as to justify concerted and continuous action. What the next turning point of our understanding of disease may be is a matter for surmise and speculation. I would hazard the guess that the next interpretation of dis-ease will in some way involve an increased emphasis on the ecological approach. Ecology is the branch of biologv which deals with the mutual relations between organisms and their environment. The more we learn about living crea-tures, whether plant or animal, the more impressive becomes the evidence of the interrelatedness of living things. They obviously live on each other as predators or as parasites. Somewhat less obviously, they live with each other in vary-ing degrees of mutual aid and dependence. For all its complexity, ecology provides a fascinating kind of under-standing of what goes on. Paul B. Sears's paper Human Ecology: A Problem in Synthesis, 2 Marston Bates's book, The Nature of Natural History, 3 and Fraser Darling's book, 2 Paul B. Sears, Human Ecology: A Problem in Synthesis, Sci-ence, Dec. 10, 1954, Vol. 120, No. 3128, pp. 959-63. 3 Marston Bates, The Nature of Natural History ( New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1950).

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  The SAGE Handbook of Health Psychology

  • Stephen Sutton, Andrew Baum, Marie Johnston, Stephen Sutton, Andrew Baum, Marie Johnston(Authors)
  • 2004(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  Health psychology is a biobehavioral disci-pline, focusing on behavioral and biological mechanisms by which environmental or social experiences are translated into physiological changes and changes in one’s health. Interest in biobehavioral interactions is not new, but its most recent emergence in health-related areas has been both catalytic and controversial. The extent to which health and wellness are biolog-ical versus psychological states remains a point of debate and contention despite the recogni-tion that biological events are immediate, ‘proximate’ causes while psychological or behavioral variables promote or impair health by influencing these biological events. Disease is essentially a biological event; it typically involves dysfunction or damage to bodily tissue, organs or systems, and whether it has behav-ioral causes or not it remains a biological process. For example, tobacco use certainly affects health and is a cause of cancers, heart disease and other illnesses. However, it affects these out-comes by causing biological damage, such as making cells in the lungs more susceptible to 3 Biological Mechanisms of Health and Disease B R E N T N. H E N D E R S O N A N D A N D R E W B A U M mutations and malignancies or by promoting atherosclerosis in the circulatory system. Stress also has a range of effects on disease etiology or progression, but it conveys these effects by affecting changes in the immune, endocrine, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and other bodily systems’ activity. ‘Disease-bearing vari-ables’ or behavioral pathogens (Matarazzo, 1984) must be translated into biological changes in order to contribute to physical dis-ease. Biobehavioral pathways or mechanisms, then, are sets of related behavioral and biolog-ical processes that can modify one another and provide ways to explain and transmit behav-ioral influences on health and illness.

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  Health Promotion

  Evidence and Experience

  • Kevin Lucas, Barbara Lloyd(Authors)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  Furthermore, the WHO definition reflects a particular viewpoint. It is couched in conventional medical language and is limited by the concerns of a particular epoch. Thus, disease is mentioned, but not illness per se. Another approach to the issue of definitions is to consider the range of models that have been proposed. Various professional groups, such as biomedical researchers, sociologists, psychologists, as well as lay persons, all construct models of health, disease and illness. Within professions these may be contested according to theoretical and methodological preferences. Models held by lay persons will also vary as they reflect particular cultural and social contexts. In the first section of this chapter our attention will focus on models employed by health professionals. We begin with a brief consideration of the rise of the medical or biomedical model, and then examine an array of social science approaches. Our aim is to identify the strands of thought that have contributed to the understanding of people working in health promotion rather than to select a single best model. In the following section we compare these models with some of those held by lay people and then consider the implications for professional/lay interactions. Following this examination we review the factors that have contributed to the medicalisation of health concerns and to governmental strategies which aim to improve the nation’s health. Distinguishing health from disease and illness Historians debate the precise date of the establishment of scientific medicine but Porter (1995) has argued ‘that medicine was implicated in the Enlight-enment formulation of the positivistic human sciences’ (p. 77). Sydenham, an English physician writing in the 17th century, argued that diseases, which he considered to exist as discoverable entities, could be classified in the fashion of plants or animals (Smith, 2002).

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  Health and Disease in Buddhist Minds

  • Sumalee Mahanarongchai(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Traugott Bautz

    (Publisher)

  Happiness means the absence of disease whereas disease is viewed as the cause deteriorating one’s physical strength and fitness. For them, in order to be healthy one must keep one’s body strong by focusing on good food, good environment and proper exercise. Even so, innumerable cases have shown that sickness can still happen at any time with anyone who has a strong or fit body. The plain understanding of health is not wrong, but it is too superficial. There must be a portion of life apart from the body which is more vulnerable to disease. This portion is sensitive to disease because it is all the time with the cause of disease. Buddhists call this portion the mind in the meanwhile mental defilements are called to the cause of disease. Health is thus directly related to the strong mind rather than the fit body. On the other side many of strict adherents of Buddhist Idealism equate dis-ease with suffering. Disease is characterized by all kinds of mental and physical miseries. To be free from suffering is health. In their beliefs health must be the state of being absent of all kinds of suffering. It is called to the mind entirely free from disease. To be free from disease means to be free from suffering. According to them, “ in the highest meaning, health is the state of completely free from all suffering that is nibb ā na. ” 7 Following this interpretation, it is im-possible for an ordinary person to be healthy. Health in this definition is there-fore too idealistic. If health amounts to the state of liberation completely free from suffering (P ā li : nibb ā na ), how can a mundane person be truly healthy? Insofar as a life is engaging with worldly passions like hatred, conceit, or even love, no one can be said to be healthy. There will be only a few extraordinary persons who are healthy by being able to transcend from the world. Health in the highest mean-ing is thus impractical to the daily life.

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  Human Diseases

  • Marianne Neighbors, Ruth Tannehill-Jones(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  After the inoculation period comes incubation time. During this period, the virus multi -plies, and the target person begins to have symptoms such as a runny nose and itchy eyes. The pathogenesis DISEASE, DISORDER, AND SYNDROME In the study of human disease, several terms may be similar and often used interchangeably but might not have identical definitions. DISEASE Disease may be defined in several ways. It may be called a change in structure or function that is considered to be abnormal within the body, or it may be defined as any change from normal. It usually refers to a condition in which symptoms occur and a pathologic state is pres-ent, such as in pneumonia or leukemia. Both of these definitions have one underlying concept: the alteration of homeostasis (ho-mee-oh-STAY-sis). Homeostasis is the state of sameness or normalcy the body strives to maintain. The body is remarkable in its ability to maintain homeostasis, but when this homeostasis is no longer maintained, the body is dis-eased or “not at ease.” DISORDER Disorder is defined as a derangement or abnormality of function. The term disorder can also refer to a patho-logic condition of the body or mind but more com -monly is used to refer to a problem such as a vitamin deficiency (nutritional disorder). It is also used to refer to structural problems such as a malformation of a joint (bone disorder) or a condition in which the term disease does not seem to apply, such as dysphagia (swallowing disorder). Because disease and disorder are so closely related, they are often used synonymously. SYNDROME Syndrome (SIN-drome) refers to a group of symptoms, which might be caused by a specific disease but might also be caused by several interrelated problems. Exam-ples include Tourette’s syndrome, Down syndrome, and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), which are discussed later in the text. PATHOLOGY Pathology (pah-THOL-oh-jee) can be broadly defined as the study of disease ( patho = disease, ology = study).

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  The Role of Medicine

  Dream, Mirage, or Nemesis?

  • Thomas McKeown(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Princeton University Press

    (Publisher)

  Part One Concepts of Health and Disease Evolution of Health Concepts The aims of this book are: (a) to examine the validity of a concept which is rarely stated explicitly but on which medical activities largely rest, namely that human health depends essentially on a mechanistic approach based on understanding of the structure and function of the body and of the disease processes that affect it; and (b) to consider the significance of the conclusions for medicine, particularly in relation to health services, medical education, and medical research. These themes are discussed in the three sections into which the book is divided, the first two concerned with concepts and determinants of health and the third with the role of medicine. Although the mechanistic approach is predominant it is not the only one which has been taken to improve man's health. In his splendid account of the evolution of health concepts Dubos referred to the dual nature of medicine which resulted from ideas which have been pro- moted with varying emphasis in all periods down to the present day: health preserved by way of life and health restored by treatment of disease. Both are to be found in the classical tradition: The myths of Hygieia and Asclepius symbolise the never-ending oscillation between two different points of view in medicine. For the worshippers of Hygieia, health is the natural order of things, a positive attribute to which men are entitled if they govern their lives wisely. According to them, the most important function of medicine is to discover and teach the natural laws which will ensure a man a healthy mind in a healthy body. More sceptical, or wiser in the ways of the world, the followers of Asclepius believe that the chief role of the physician is to treat disease, to restore health by correcting any imperfec- tions caused by the accidents of birth or life. 1 The preservative approach was certainly in the minds of the social and i.

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