Impact of Cultural and Social Factors on Health

“Health is a universal human aspiration and a basic human need. The development of society, rich or poor, can be judged by the quality of its population’s health, how fairly health is distributed across the social spectrum, and the degree of protection provided from disadvantage due to ill-health. Health equity is central to this premise. Strengthening health equity—globally and within countries—means going beyond contemporary concentration on the immediate causes of disease to the ‘causes of the causes’—the fundamental structures of social hierarchy and the socially determined conditions these create in which people grow, live, work, and age. The time for action is now, not just because better health makes economic sense, but because it is right and just”.
Professor Sir Michael Marmot,
Interim Statement of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health

As Professor Malcolm Marmot clearly states, good health is desired and required by all. Under ideal conditions, each and every member of society, around the globe, would either enjoy good health, or at least have access to facilities which would enable him to better his health condition. However, the rise in the global burden of diseases clearly indicates that the current situation is light years away from this ideal situation. South Asia, home to a quarter of the world’s population, is a glaring example of the dismal current scenario.
Defining Health and Medicine
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), health is a state of complete well-being: physical, mental, and emotional. Therefore, good health encompasses more than being disease free, and depends upon a healthy environment and a stable mind.
Medicine is the social institution that diagnoses, treats, and prevents disease.1 To do so, Medicine depends upon most other sciences—including life and earth sciences, chemistry, physics, and engineering.
Popular belief dictates that science alone determines illness, but the sociological view