The biomedical model of health and illness focuses on purely biological factors, and excludes psychological, environmental, and social influences. This is considered to be the dominant, modern way for health care professionals to diagnose and treat condition of diseases in most western countries. The purpose of these health services is to mainly cure disease and the health care professionals will use scientifically tested methods such as X-ray’s, scans and blood tests. The intervention or actions taken to improve the health of an individual are through medical treatment, hospitalisation, prescriptions and surgery. http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-the-biomedical-model.htm
The advantage of the biomedical approach is that, it makes sure that individual’s with any diseases and illness are treated and cured from the disease. The disadvantage of this approach is that, they mainly focus on the individual with diseases or illness but tend to ignore the environmental and social factors that might cause the diseases. The biomedical model fits well with the functionalist perspective because, if the individuals are ill, they would not be able to work and contribute to the functioning of the society.
SOCIO-MEDICAL MODEL OF HEALTH
The socio-medical model health looks at how society and the environment affect our everyday health and wellbeing, including factors such as social class, occupation, education, income and poverty, poor diet and pollution. For example, poor housing and poverty are causes to respiratory problems and in response to these, causes and origins of ill health. The socio-medical aims to encourage society to include better housing and introduce programmes to tackle poverty as a solution. The focus of this model is principally to explain why health inequalities exist and persist. http://www.markedbyteachers.com/as-and-a-level/sociology/biomedical-and-the-socio-medical-models-of-health.html The advantage of socio-medical model of