WHAT IS HEALTH?
Reference List
VIDEOS :
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This is a short 2 minute video that showcases multiple people of different ages telling what health means to them. It illustrates that the definition of health is a little different for everyone.
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Greatist. (2017, Mar 3). How Do You Define Health? [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGQLPSh_shk
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In this twenty minute TED talk, Bill Walczak looks at the US health system and compares how it is doing to the WHO definition of health. He argues that the US has a medical system on a health system and that the only domain of the WHO definition of health that the US has any success in is the physical one. He uses an example from his own career of his involvement in the Codman Square Health Centre. What is interesting about the Centre is that they were able to increase the health of a subset of the population by focusing on education, food security and providing a safe environment for meeting. In other words they focused on making changes to the social determinants of health in able to increase health.
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TED. (2020, May 18). Unlearning & Expanding our Definition of Health | Bill Walczak [Video]. YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q-mmfjIQUg
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ARTICLES :
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In this qualitative observational study, the authors examine the views on health and illness of Indigenous Leaders in Southen Equador and find they differed from that of Western biomedical models of care.
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Bautista-Valarezo, E., Duque, V., Verdugo Sánchez, A. E., Dávalos-Batallas, V., Michels, N. R. M., Hendrickx, K., &
Verhoeven, V. (2020). Towards an indigenous definition of health: an explorative study to understand the indigenous Ecuadorian people’s health and illnes concepts. International Journal for Equity in Health, 19(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-020-1142-8
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I found this next article extremely interesting which may have something to do with my background in Occupational Therapy. The authors introduce the Meikiroch Model as a new concept for looking at health. It looks at the whole person and believes that each person has a biologically given and personally acquired potential to realize their own optimal health. It calls on the health care system to become less top down and cookie cutter and to consider the uniqueness of each person within their social and natural surroundings. It calls health care to help patients fully optimize and realize their health potential.
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Bircher, J. (2020). Meikirch model: new definition of health as hypothesis to fundamentally improve healthcare delivery.
Integrated Healthcare Journal, 2(1), Article e000046. https://doi.org/10.1136/ihj-2020-000046
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In this article, Godlee proposes a new definition of health that focuses on our ability to adapt and self manage. She urges us to consider a definition of health beyond the WHO's definition. She questions that if the goal of health care is health, that we should be able to define health and know what the goal looks like.
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Godlee, F. (2011). What is health? In BMJ (Online) (Vol. 343, Issue 7817). https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.d4817
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In this article, Huber et al. discuss why they believe the WHO's definition of health is limited and outdated. They, like the author above, propose a new definition of health that focuses on the patient's ability to adapt and change in the face of challenges in the social, physical and emotional domains.
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Huber, M., André Knottnerus, J., Green, L., Van Der Horst, H., Jadad, A. R., Kromhout, D., Leonard, B., Lorig, K., Loureiro, M.
I., Van Der Meer, J. W. M., Schnabel, P., Smith, R., Van Weel, C., & Smid, H. (2011). How should we define health? BMJ (Online), 343(7817). https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.d4163
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This study demonstrates how people with a physical disability define health within a social framework.
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Nazli, A. (2012). “I’m Healthy”: Construction of health in disability. Disability and Health Journal, 5(4), 233–
240. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dhjo.2012.06.001
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This authors in this article discuss and compare 4 definitions of mental health and their normative criteria.
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Palumbo, D., & Galderisi, S. (2020). Controversial issues in current definitions of mental health. Archives of Psychiatry &
Psychotherapy, 22(1), 7–11. https://doi.org/10.12740/APP/118064
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This article seeks to expand the WHO's definition of health and add a person's interaction with the animate and inanimate environment. It examines George Canguilhem's definition of health that focuses on the ability of the person to adapt their environment and circumstances. It moves away from health being fixed and introduces the idea that the definition of health varies by circumstance. It argues that this definition puts the patient in the position of self determining their current health needs.
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What is health? The ability to adapt. (2009). Lancet (London, England), 373(9666), 781. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-
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