Models of health and illness- consider all elements that influence health, including social, cultural, political, and environmental issues.
Models of health and illness
“A condition of total bodily, social, and mental well-being is not only the absence of sickness or disability.
Health is a basic human right that should be available to everyone, regardless of their ethnicity,
religion, political views, or socioeconomic status. In 1948, the World Health Organization was established.”
Social model of health
The disability rights movement has long espoused this theory of disability.
The standard medical paradigm sparked the idea for this new approach.
Socio-cultural-political-environmental influences on one’s well-being are all examined in a health-promoting social model.
Poor housing is a good example, view the diagram for yourself Stress and poor self-esteem have been shown to have an adverse effect on health.
“Worse health is likely to be associated with lower levels of autonomy and self-esteem.”
In 2003, (Marmot) There is a strong belief in CDHN that communities are aware that their health, is being impacted by a wide range of factors.
Communities may and should be actively engaged in the identification, planning, design and implementation of solutions to health challenges and unfair inequities.
Medical model
Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century.
Modern medicine is built on the notion that science can and will heal all diseases.
Health may be measured by detecting whether a sickness is present or not,
making this notion of health easy to grasp.
The overreliance on medical science’s effect on health and the heavy focus on the absence
of sickness as a sign of good health, however, misses the strength of other essential variables.
Biopsychosocial model
Psychiatrist George Engel created this model in 1977,
and it takes into account the fact that there are several elements that influence one’s health.
It focuses “explicitly on the human condition” (Engel, 1997).
Scientific and social aspects of health are considered.
Biological characteristics such as age, disease, and gender are examined in the model.
People’s thoughts and perceptions have a role in the psychological elements.
Relationships, or the lack of them, are a part of the social. In the event of a break-up,
“we experience a sense of relief and relief when our interpersonal relationships are rebuilt” (Engel, 1997)
Salutogenic model
Sociologist Aaron Antonov sky developed the concept,
which focuses on how and why humans remain healthy.
The link between stress, coping, and health is better understood using this paradigm.
Ecosystem Health
One of the numerous ways in which human activity is altering the natural self-regulation,
of the biosphere is through altering land use and climate change; population expansion;
resource depletion; pollution; urbanization; loss of biodiversity; and other local and global processes.
People, domestic animals, wildlife, the seas, and forests all suffer as a result of these changes.
The most important solution is to rethink our relationship with the rest of the natural world. (Lopez and Levins, 1999)
Why should we consider the wider determinants of health?
According to the World Health Organization, “the situations in which individuals are born, develop, live, work, and age are the social determinants of health.”
The allocation of money, power, and resources at the global, national, and local levels affects these situations or circumstances.
” An important part of WHO’s definition of health disparities is “the unjust and preventable variation
in health status evident within and across nations.”(World Health Organization, 2012)
A person’s health is influenced by many factors, not only their immediate physical surroundings, as seen in the figure.
Social networks, social standing, and individual lifestyles all have a role in determining health,
along with economic and environmental variables.
There is an inverse and converse link between the health determinants,
which means that all of these variables affect one another.
Social exclusion
One of the most significant implications on health’s broader determinants is social isolation.
At every stage of life, people who live in impoverished neighborhoods are more likely to suffer from bad health. In WHO 2008,
The disadvantages tend to cluster among the same population and their health consequences increase over time.
” It’s more difficult for individuals to have a healthy old age if their lives are spent in stressful economic and social conditions” (Wilkinson & Marmot 2003).
So it’s important to remember that health is more than just the absence or presence of illness.
Acknowledgment that sickness may be used to assess one’s health is more appropriate.
In order to effectively address health difficulties, it is necessary to consider all of the possible contributing variables.
“Address power inequalities and bring about change based on social justice, equality, inclusion”
are the stated goals of community development (National Occupational Standards, 2009)
Why is community development a good way to tackle health inequalities?
For example, poverty and educational disadvantage are considered underlying causes of illness,
in a community development approach to health.
The health and resilience of individuals and communities may be improved by fostering strong social capital and networks.
In the process of community development,
the construction of social capital and networks may have a favorable effect on one’s health.