Definition of Health in the 21st Century
- Danielle
- May 31, 2019
- 3 min read
The World Health Organization (WHO) definition of health has been in place since 1948 and is defined as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (Huber, 2011, p.235). Although this definition has been in place for over 70 years it has faced many criticisms. Huber (2011) state that much of the critique surrounding this definition stems from the word “complete”. How does one define complete health? Is the notion of complete health even achievable? The current definition of health would leave the majority of the population to be classed as unhealthy, simply because of the word complete (Huber, 2011, p.235). From this it is evident that the definition of health needs to be addressed and updated.
A study done with various focus groups including health professionals and patients, looked at how changing the definition of health could impact public health. In this study health was defined as “The ability to adapt and to self-manage, in the face of social, physical and emotional challenges” (Jambroes et al, 2015, p.412). The results of this study are interesting as participants felt that this new definition placed more emphasis on individuals taking responsibility for their own health, therefore in a way becoming an advocate for themselves. Additionally, with this new definition it moves away from the notion of having complete health and aims for people to be considered healthy if their chronic disease is managed/they are coping with their disease. Participants also felt that using this new definition of health could allow implementation of incentives for individuals maintaining good health and taking preventative measures against disease. Furthermore, focusing on health education in primary and secondary school in order to educate children early on was also viewed as a new avenue to pursue in order to help achieve better health outcomes (Jambroes et al, 2015). As can be seen, this study has brought forward many innovative ideas about how to view and manage health, and more importantly has demonstrated room to improve upon the current definition of health.
Perhaps the following statement summarizes the main issue with the current definition of health from WHO best: “this utopian vision is an unattainable ideal, bearing no relation to the struggles of real people in an imperfect world”(Misselbrook, 2014, p.582). Misselbrook (2014) expands on this idea further through illustrating that a person who has an illness or a disability should be given the tools to reconstruct their life to live their best life possible, and not be classed as unhealthy. With this perspective the goal should be to achieve a state in which people are able to function to the best of their ability despite having an ailment or disability. Other viewpoints, such as that of Brook (2016) look at adding certain measures such as tolerance to WHO definition of health. The current definition of health does not take into account issues such as people who are intolerant of certain races, religions, ethnicity, etc. Although this may be difficult to incorporate into a health providers assessment of health for a patient, can a population say they are healthy with the presence of such problems of intolerance (Brook, 2016)?
It is easy to see that the current definition of health from WHO is restrictive and does not encompass all aspects of health in todays society. There are many ways in which this definition could be altered in order to be more reflective of the total health of an individual. Perhaps through removing the word “complete” from the definition of health, or adding words of adaptability or achieving the best state of health possible a better definition can be realized.
References
Brook, RH. (2016, Feb 14). Should the Definition of Health Include a Measure of
Tolerance. Retrieved from:
Huber, M. (2011, July 30). Health, how Should we Define it. Retrieved from:
Jambroes,M, Nederland,T, Kaljouw, M, van Vliet, K, Essink-Bot, ML, Ruwaard, D. (2015, Dec 24). Implications of Health as ‘the Ability to Adapt and Self-Manage’ for Public Health Policy: a Qualitative Study. Retrieved from:
https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/26/3/412/246717
Misselbrook, D. (2014, Nov). W is for Wellbeing and the WHO Definition of Health. Retrieved from:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4220217/
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