Health

Health has a variety of definitions, which have been used for different purposes over time. Health can be promoted by encouraging healthful activities, such as regular physical exercise and adequate sleep, and by reducing or avoiding unhealthful activities or situations, such as smoking or excessive stress. Some factors affecting health are due to individual choices, such as whether to engage in high-risk behaviour, while others are due to structural causes, such as whether the society is arranged in a way that makes it easier or harder for people to get necessary healthcare services. Still, other factors are beyond both individual and group choices, such as genetic disorders.

The meaning of health has evolved. In keeping with the biomedical perspective, early definitions of health focused on the theme of the body’s ability to function; health was seen as a state of normal function that could be disrupted from time to time by disease. An example of such a definition of health is: “a state characterized by anatomic, physiologic, and psychological integrity; ability to perform personally valued family, work, and community roles; ability to deal with physical, biological, psychological, and social stress”. Then, in 1948, in a radical departure from previous definitions, the World Health Organization (WHO) proposed a definition that aimed higher, linking health to well-being, in terms of “physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity”. Although this definition was welcomed by some as being innovative, it was also criticized for being vague and excessively broad and was not construed as measurable. For a long time, it was set aside as an impractical ideal, with most discussions of health returning to the practicality of the biomedical model.

Just as there was a shift from viewing disease as a state to thinking of it as a process, the same shift happened in definitions of health. Again, the WHO played a leading role when it fostered the development of the health promotion movement in the 1980s. This brought in a new conception of health, not as a state, but in dynamic terms of resiliency, in other words, as “a resource for living”. In 1984, WHO revised the definition of health defined it as “the extent to which an individual or group can realize aspirations and satisfy needs and to change or cope with the environment. Health is a resource for everyday life, not the objective of living; it is a positive concept, emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities.” Thus, health refers to the ability to maintain homeostasis and recover from adverse events. Mental, intellectual, emotional and social health refers to a person’s ability to handle stress, acquire skills and maintain relationships, all of which form resources for resiliency and independent living. This opens up many possibilities for health to be taught, strengthened and learned.

Since the late 1970s, the federal Healthy People Program has been a visible component of the United States’ approach to improving population health. In every decade, a new version of Healthy People is issued, featuring updated goals and identifying topic areas and quantifiable objectives for health improvement during the succeeding ten years, with assessment at that point of progress or lack thereof. Progress has been limited to many objectives, leading to concerns about the effectiveness of Healthy People in shaping outcomes in the context of a decentralized and uncoordinated US health system. Healthy People 2020 gives more prominence to health promotion and preventive approaches and adds a substantive focus on the importance of addressing social determinants of health. A new expanded digital interface facilitates use and dissemination rather than bulky printed books as produced in the past. The impact of these changes on Healthy People will be determined in the coming years.

Systematic activities to prevent or cure physical problems and promote physical being and functioning in humans are undertaken by healthcare providers. Applications about animal health are covered by the veterinary sciences. The term “healthy” is also widely used in the context of many types of non-living organizations and their impacts on the benefit of humans, such as in the sense of healthy communities, healthy cities or healthy environments. In addition to health care interventions and a person’s surroundings, several other factors are known to influence the physical status of individuals. These are referred to as the “determinants of health”, which include the individual’s background, lifestyle, economic status, social conditions and spirituality; Studies have shown that high levels of stress can affect human well-being.

In the first decade of the 21st century, the conceptualization of health as an ability opened the door for self-assessments to become the main indicators to judge the performance of efforts aimed at improving human well-being. It also created the opportunity for every person to feel healthy, even in the presence of multiple chronic diseases or a terminal condition, and for the re-examination of determinants of health (away from the traditional approach that focuses on the reduction of the prevalence of diseases).