Concept of Health and Disease

Concept of Health

• Health is difficult to define, but it can be understood as the absence of disease or infirmity, sound body and mind, and normal body functions.
• Different professionals have different perspectives on health:
  • Anatomist: normal anatomical structures
  • Physiologist: normal body functions
  • Biochemist: normal biochemical levels/values
  • Pathologist: normal cellular makeup
  • Psychiatrist: well-adjusted and balanced personality
  • Geneticist: correct existence of genetic potential
  • Clinician: no abnormality in structure and function of the body
• WHO definition: "Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."

Dimensions of Health

• Physical health: adequate body weight, height, and circumference, acceptable levels of vision, hearing, locomotion, pulse rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, chest circumference, head circumference, and waist-hip ratio.
• Mental health: a state of well-being in which an individual can realize their abilities, cope with normal stresses of life, work productively, and make a contribution to their community.
• Social wellbeing: ability to adjust with others in social life, at home, at the workplace, and with people.

What is Disease

• Meaning of "disease": "without ease" (uneasiness)
• Disease can be physiological/psychological dysfunction or any deviation from or interruption of the normal structure or function of any part, organ, or system of the body that is manifested by a characteristic set of signs or symptoms.

Illness, Disease, and Sickness

• Illness: the patient's subjective experience of symptoms (what the patient has)
• Disease: what a doctor diagnoses (medical condition)
• Sickness: the society's view of an illness or other condition (not necessarily a medical condition)

Public Health

• Public health is the field of medicine concerned with safeguarding and improving the health of the community as a whole.
• Definition: "The science and art of preventing disease, promoting health, and prolonging life through organized effort of the community."
• Vision: to obtain a healthy people in healthy communities
• Mission: to promote physical and mental health and prevent disease, injury, and disability
• Key public health functions:
  • Assessing and monitoring the health of the population
  • Planning, implementing, and evaluating public health programs
  • Identifying and dealing with environmental hazards
  • Communicating with people and organizations to promote public health

Importance of Public Health

• Health policy planning according to the health needs of the population
• Different diseases in developing and developed countries (e.g., upper respiratory tract infections, diarrhea, malnutrition, and infectious diseases in developing countries; obesity, CVA, IHD, and CA in developed countries)
• Importance of using indicators positively estimating health, such as the health index.

Understanding the definitions of health, disease, and public health, including the concept of health from different perspectives.