With the dominance of medicine over the past two hundred years many historical health concepts have gone through various changes. The definition of health is dependent on one’s perspective, be it lay, professional or from influences of specific cultures or social ideals and health policies of a particular time or place (Fleming & Parker 2012, p.30, Naidoo & Wills 2000).
An exploration through history will reflect on the health philosophies of the ancient Greeks and Romans, the Middle Age’s concept of quarantine and isolation and the religious theories of disease including a brief insight into the renaissance. Subsequently, a discussion of health concepts of the past two centuries including 19th century sanitary reform, the dominance in the 20th century of the medical model of health care. This paper will look at the shift away from the medical model and the 21st century concept of health promotion and multidisciplinary care, using allied health professionals. I will argue that attention to the achievements and failures of the historical concepts of health, equips allied health professionals with an opportunity to objectively decide which of these practices have relevance or are useful in developing new approaches for positive health outcomes.
In ancient times religion and science were tied in together when it came to health and everyday living. The ruins throughout Greece and Italy stand as testament to their ingenuity with creating and building infrastructure, but also of the people’s belief in the power and influence of the ancient Gods to heal illness (Krieger 2012, p.47, Hays 1998, p.9). According to Tountas (2009) the ancient Greeks were the first to break with mystical notions of health re-orienting ‘medicine toward a ...
... middle of paper ...
...model of illness categories’ in GL, Albrecht, R, Fitzpatrick, SC, Scrimshaw (ed). 2003, The handbook of social studies of health and medicine, pp. 9-23, Sage publications, London, available at http://books.google.com.au
Veith, I 1980, ‘Changing concepts of health care: An historian's View’ Western Journal Medicine, vol.133, no.6, pp.532-538
Vlahov, D, Gibble, E, Freudenberg, N & Galea, S 2004, ‘Cities and Health: history, Approaches, Academic medicine, vol.79, no.12
World Health Organization (WHO) 1986, The Ottawa charter for health promotion, Ottawa: Canadian Public Health Association. http://www.who.int/hpr/NPH/docs/ottawa_charter_hp.pdf
Yuil, C 2002, ‘Concepts of health and medicine’ in Barry, A and Yuil, C 2008, Understanding the sociology of health: an introduction 2nd ed, pp.22-33, Sage publications Ltd, London, available at http://books.google.com.au
The concepts discussed within the article regarding medicalization and changes within the field of medicine served to be new knowledge for me as the article addressed multiple different aspects regarding the growth of medicalization from a sociological standpoint. Furthermore, the article “The Shifting Engines of Medicalization” discussed the significant changes regarding medicalization that have evolved and are evidently practiced within the contemporary society today. For instance, changes have occurred within health policies, corporatized medicine, clinical freedom, authority and sovereignty exercised by physicians has reduced as other factors began to grow that gained importance within medical care (Conrad 4). Moreover, the article emphasized
Shi L. & Singh D.A. (2011). The Nation’s Health. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Through showing the different definitions of health, the authors explain how those different understandings affect patterns of behavior on health depend on different cultures. In addition, an analysis of the models of health demonstrates even western medical approaches to health have different cognitions, same as the Indigenous health beliefs. The most remarkable aspect is a balance, a corresponding core element in most cultures which is an important consideration in Indigenous health as well. From an Indigenous perspective, health is considered as being linked, and keeping the connection is a priority to preserve their health. Consequently, health is a very much culturally determined. Health practitioners should anticipate and respect the cultural differences when they encounter a patient from various cultures. In particular, this article is good to understand why the Indigenous health beliefs are not that different than western medicine views using appropriate examples and comparative composition, even though the implementation the authors indicated is a bit abstract, not
Overtime, sociology has played an essential role in the aid of healthcare policies and procedures, along with playing a fundamental role in one’s understanding of health inequalities. This paper explores how sociology has played such a role in healthcare, whilst including discussions regarding the influence of social structures and inequalities in the health of an individual, their family and community, with the topic of health variations between social classes being the main focus of the discussion. A structured overview, review and evaluation of a specific health policy in the UK will also be provided within this paper. Sociology in healthcare. Sociology can be defined in a number of ways, due to its almost limitless scope (Denny, Earle,
The Open University (2010) K101 An Introduction to Health and Social Care, Unit 7, ‘Understanding the Past’, Milton Keynes, The Open University.
“Prior to 1800, medicine in the United States was a “family affair.” (Mark David, 1999) In the 1800’s when a family member was ill the family would band together to help the ill person with healing. Women were generally expected to take care of the ill
This model considers other aspects of an individual 's life such as their culture and environment. Unlike the biomedical model, the social model tries to prevent the disease in the first place, so it focuses more on educating people and health promotion. The biomedical looks at an individual’s physical disease but the social model also looks at a person’s well-being. According to Stephan Sutton, Andrew Baum and Marie Johnston (2004) the SAGE Handbook of Health psychology ‘a combination of high psychological demands, such as time pressure and low decision latitude increases the risk of psychophysiological stress reactions and subsequent ill
The universal understanding of “Health” has taken the form of which an individual’s physical and cognitive state of well being when it is compared to the majority of the population within the society in which he or she is residing in. Just as Norman Sartorius has mentioned in his article “The Meaning of Health and its Promotion”, a healthy person is often determined by whether or not if he or she is struggling with any medical complication and mental disorder. Sartorius’ claim in which “health” has three definitions that can help regular individuals and professionals identify the state of one’s well being corresponds with my interpretation of what is health like. I believe that health includes the condition of both the body and the mind, be
Nordqvist , Christian. "What Is Health? What Does Good Health Mean?." Medical News Today 21 May 2009: n. pag. Web. 1 Apr 2011. .
middle of paper ... ... http://www.statistics.gov.uk/hub/release-calendar/index.html?newquery=*&uday=0&umonth=0&uyear=0&title=Social+Trends&paget Gerhardt, E. (1987) Ideas about Illness: An Intellectual and Political History of Medical Sociology.
"Historical Collections :: Reflections on Health in Society & Culture." Claude Moore Health Sciences Library | www.hsl.virginia.edu. 13 Feb. 2012 .
To further introduce Medical Anthropology, I will reiterate highlights of my previous presentations. Early on in Turkey, I asked each person in our program the following question: "I would like you to tell me about health and what it means to you?" The answers to this question varied widely, making it difficult to define a global conception of health. In analyzing the answers, I established the following five components of health:
Kevin White pp: 5-8k introduction to sociology of health and illness second edition books.goole.co.uk accessed 11-04-2014
As the largest force in health care, nursing profession is considered to be in a unique position to facilitate health promotion and disease prevention. Nurses spend considerably more time with patients in comparison to other healthcare professionals and as such, they assist patients in managing their own health. The fundamental requirement in providing this care is to ensure that individuals remain as independent as possible through encouragement and empowerment. There are number of factors to be considered in delivering this care effectively. In view of cultural, socio-economic and educational diversity amongst us, it is difficult to define “health” or indeed “illness”. As our perceptions differ, so do our interpretations and possible meanings of those words. The World Health Organisation (WHO), 1948, states that “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. Although positive, the def...
Uhland, Vicky. “The Picture of Health.” Momentum 6.3 (2013): 42-45. Academic Search Premier. Web. 20 Mar. 2014.