Baskadia

We all want to be healthy but may pause a little if we are asked what it means to be healthy. Is health something that we can grasp, something that we can measure and can improve, or is it the absence of disease and sickness?

It is helpful to give some consideration to the definition of health so that we can be on firm foundations when looking to improve health in our communities.

The longstanding definition of health from the World Health Organization (WHO) formulated in 1948 is ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’. This was an important definition in that it considered health as something positive rather than an absence of disease.

The focus on generating health rather than concentrating on sickness has opened the way for local health improvement in communities and to a focus on listening to people rather than simply sticking with a medical model of disease. It is also potentially helpful to see health in the context of the three areas of physical, mental and social wellbeing, especially if these are given similar weight when decisions on priorities are being made.

The WHO definition is by no means perfect though and has come under criticism in recent years. It was originally drawn up when rapidly progressing illnesses were more prominent and life expectancy much shorter than it is today. As populations become older, long-term conditions become more common and screening and early diagnosis increases, so conceptions of health change.

A complete state of health may not be possible for someone living with diabetes, but they can still be healthy. A person may be diagnosed as HIV positive but with appropriate support and treatment may have very little or no effect on life expectancy.

Health is about what makes us feel good physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually. It is about how we react to the strains and stresses of life and are not only resilient to them but have the potential to bounce back even stronger.