Different Concepts Of Health

Different Concepts Of Health
Sociological approaches to health:
Negative
Positive
Holistic
W.H.O (world health organisation)
Models of health:
Bio-medical
Socio-medical
Negative concepts of health: This simply means being free from illness or diseases or being free from pain or discomfort, upset, tiredness, or anything else that might be a symptom of not being in good health.

Positive concepts of health: This is a type of person who is physically active and comparatively fit. This concept is said to be achieve by continuous effort, People with this belief take active steps to maintain their health.

Holistic: A holistic concept of health is considered the belief that being healthy means being without any physical disorders or diseases and being emotionally comfortable.

World health organisation: WHO is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system. It is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.

Bio-medical: This is an approach to health and illness ‘that identifies illness as the absence of disease’ and focuses on curing individuals with specific illnesses.
Socio-medical: this is an approach that focuses on both the social and environmental factors that tend to influence our health and well-being. This also includes the impact of poverty, poor housing and pollution.
Ill health
Illness,
Disability
Disease
The sick role (the clinical iceberg)

Illness: A subjective sensation of illness means feeling ill. People might feel ill when they have some disease symptoms; they might also feel ill when no symptoms are present. This term means ill health exists when people decide that they feel ill or describes them as being ill. Certain individuals that may be quite anxious or are very sensitive about their health tend to think of themselves as ill even when symptoms are very mild or absent.

Disability: Some sociologist will often refer to disability as the restrictions that arise for a person with impairment because of the attitudes and the lack of appropriate services and facilities to meet their needs.

Disease: The term disease refers to a diagnosable problem which might be physiological (a physical disorder) or psychiatric (a mental disorder). This view of ill health is objective, i.e. ill health is something for which there is likely to be publicly available evidence.

The sick role: Talcott parsons’ states that being ‘sick’ is a socially conditioned role.
He says we behave in a certain way once we know we are ‘sick’. Parsons said that society applies ‘rules’ to people who are ill. The sick person AND the society have obligations. Society believes to excuse the sick person from normal social roles (e.g. worker, mother etc.) AND to not hold the patient responsible for their condition AND for the sick person to be taken care of these obligations must be fulfilled for the person to be allowed to be in the ‘sick role’.

The clinical iceberg: the clinical iceberg indicates that only a certain percentage of individuals present their symptoms to a health professional so you can never really indicate how many people have ill health. This gives the impression that peoples’ concept of ill health are different.

Bio-Medical And Socio-Medical Models Of Health

There are many different approaches to health and ill health in sociology, and these include Functionalism, Marxism, Feminism and Interactionism. The World Health Organisation (WHO) in 1974 defines positive health as a state of complete physical mental, social, spiritual and well-being not merely the absence of disease. The holistic approach is based on the individuals physical, social, emotional and spiritual health needs. Negative concepts of health simply means being free from illness or diseases or being free from pain or discomfort, upset, tiredness, or anything else that might be a symptom of not being in good health. This statement relates to symbolic interactionism which was founded by Bulmer (1969). The functionalist approach to health and ill health argues that illness is a form of deviance that disturbs the social function of a society; within the functionalist approach to health it studies the relationship between a sick individual and the society as a whole. Parsons stated that for the society to function efficiently the members of the society must be free from illness and must be of well health. Functionalists argued that stability and cooperation are very crucial for a society to function efficiently; functionalists explain that through the process of socialisation we learn our society’s general norms, values and social roles.

However the positive concept of health is seen as a type of person who is physically active and comparatively fit. This concept is said to be achieved by continuous effort, People with this belief take active steps to maintain their health. The biomedical identifies illness as the absence of disease’ and focuses on curing individuals with specific illnesses. And effective treatment which makes is useful for helping ill patients. They look at what is wrong and fix that part of the person. If a person isn't well they would be advised to visit the doctor to be examined. If they are ill the doctor will make a diagnosis and the individual is them offered a treatment to make them better. They view the body as a machine and when a part in it goes wrong it must be fixed in order for it to work again. This approach to health is used mostly in the western industrialised societies (BTEC level 3 HSC 2008). This view of health underpins the policies and practice of the National Health Service (NHS) as stated in this model, health is largely regarded as being the absence of disease.