Biomedical and social model of health Health is “A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity” (WHO, 1946). Health can be defined as an “absence of disease” in the modern western world and is found in medical documentation, government reports and legislation. (Waugh et.al 2008). There are two competing models of health and they are often referred to as the biomedical and social models. The differences between the biomedical and social model of health is that biomedical focuses on the cure for treating and diagnosing treatment for ill patients while the social model focuses on the origins of the illness rather than the cure.
Although, many sociologists engage in conflict when deciding on a definition of ‘healthy’ they tend to predominantly agree with the WHO’s definition. This concept ‘absence of disease’, can be seen as a negative concept of health as it is concerned with an individual’s physical, intellectual, social and emotional wellbeing. Due to the WHO’s definition many health care provisions have taken to using holistic methods of treatment in order to address the needs of the ‘whole’ person. The biomedical model is one approach to health and illness that sociologists use. This model identifies health as the ‘absence of disease’ with specific focus on diagnosing and curing individuals with illnesses such as cancer.
The World Health Organisation 1955 (WHO) describes heath as “Not the mere absence of disease but total physical, mental and social wellbeing”. interactionists would argue that if health consists in the absence of disease, people could be seen as being healthy if they do not have a disease. This would be irrespective of how they feel and whether they considered themselves to be healthy. The problem with this view of health is that it assumes that there is a norm for all bodies. It also tends to rely upon a diagnosis being made, most probably by a member of the medical profession.
Therefore, to protect them, they are kept away from mainstream society and excluded. * Rights: The medical model of disability believes that medical professionals know best. This means that therefore the rights of the individual are seen as unimportant and are pushed aside to follow the opinion of the medical professionals. * Autonomy: Decisions in health and social care services for people with disabilities are usually made by carers or medical professionals, as they feel they know what is best for the individual. Therefore, autonomy is not an important principle in the medical model.
Assessing, planning, implementing and evaluating a Health Promotion activity Introduction: This essay will give a systematic account of a Health Promotion (HP) activity, which was focused on the awareness of stress and its prevention. It will analyse the assessment of the health need and how the activity was planned, implemented and then evaluated to determine if the anticipated outcome was achieved. The World Health Organization (WHO, 1948) defined health as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. In 1986, it added that health is a resource for everyday life, and not the objective of living, a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities (WHO, 1986). However, Seedhouse (1986) suggested that health can best be described as providing the foundation by which human achievement can be attained; it is an instrument, agency, method, or course of action employed to attain some object or bring about some benefiting results, rather than a fixed condition or status, to which someone might aspire so that, with the appropriate resources, people are more easily enabled to achieve their potential.
The W.H.O’s definition of health and well-being would suggest that someone who holds a negative definition of health would not be healthy if all their requirements are not being addressed. A ‘positive’ concept of health refers to the aspect of physical, emotional, intellectual and social well-being of a person in terms of being free from ay ailments or diseases. So in addition to this a person with a disability who leads a full like and is content may be regarded as ‘healthy’. The positive definition of health is generally vague in medical terms; it seems to imply that to be healthy has a lot to do with general quality of life. Alternative health and complementary therapy practitioners tend to use the positive definition of health as a part of their practice much more than traditional medical practitioners.
Biomedical model makes a cure the priority within health care services. Health is determined by the “absence of disease”. The reason for national health services are to find cures for already existing diseases and or an illness. After researching the illness enough to find out how to cure it, they then give out medication to cure the illness. Sociologists find that doing all the research needed to find a cure is a limitation of the model.
Holistic Medicine believes in the optimal acquisition of all these aspects of life. This system of health care refutes the separation of mind and body as considered and advocated in the traditional medicine. Holistic Medicine looks at mind, body and spirit as sub-parts, which form the person; a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. In other words, a whole (person) made up of its parts (mind, body and spirit) is greater in value than the individual sum of these parts. The Holistic Medicine intends to restore health and wellness to the person as a whole, rather than rectifying the diseased part alone.
Curanderismo “is an earthy, natural, grounded health-care system that seeks to keep all of the elements of our being in balance”. Curanderismo comes from the Spanish word cura, which means “to heal” or “to be a priest” According to the narrator of the book she stresses, “one of the most important aspects of curanderismo is that it does not separate the soul and spirit from the body” (Avila, pg. 16). She explains that it is medicine and spirituality practiced simultaneously. In contrast to curanderismo, which is the belief of always incorporating things that are useful and available into its treatments, conventional western biomedicine is more focused on going through a procedural manual and focusing on the development of drugs, advanced medical technologies and believing that science can heal us.
Models of Health According to the World Health Organisation, “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” (World Health Organisation, 2011) There are two main models of health which reflect different perspectives. These models are known as the social model of health and the medical model of health. The medical model of health focuses more on the cure for an illness, whereas the social model of health concentrates on the origins of the illness rather than the cure such as class, gender and ethnicity. (HSC, 2009) In the medical model of health, the main focus is on a person functioning correctly physically and defines bad health and illness as the presence of disease. The medical model looks at the body as a machine, where if it were to break down, a doctor would take on the role of an engineer and attempt to fix it.