Health

Health care

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, and does not consist only of one absence of disease or infirmity.

This definition is that of the preamble to 1946 with the Constitution of the World Health Organization . It implies that all the fundamental needs for the person are satisfied, whether they are emotional, medical, nutritional, social or cultural. It presents a utopian character since it classifies, according to studied country's, from 70 to 99% of people like patient. One can prefer that of Rene Dubos to him : "physical and mental State relatively of embarrassments and sufferings which makes it possible to the individual to function as a long time as possible in the medium where the chance or the choice placed it" , which has health like the convergence of the concepts of autonomy and wellbeing.

All things considered, health it is when all functions well, that all hums, body like mental.

Diseases, Traumatisms and Infirmities

In fact health is not inevitably a corollary of the absence of disease: there are many examples of people carrying various affections but which are in good health because their disease is controlled by a treatment. As of the middle of the XXe century, the specialists in the diabetes thus spoke about "health insulinienne". Today, this established fact is even majority in the developed countries: it becomes exceptional starting from a certain age not to have for example a disorder of the ocular refraction or problems of hypertension. A contrario certain diseases can be asymptomatic during very a long time, with the result that patients who feel in good health can not be it really.

Public health

The public health gathers the whole of the average collectives likely to promote health and to improve the living conditions.The organization of the care remained until the XIX E century very mainly dependent on private initiatives. The role of the religious institutions was then prevalent, the assistance with the patients being regarded as a charity organization. As from the century of the Lights, the disease gradually ceases being regarded as a fate and the body becomes again a subject of concern. This movement relates to initially the elites, then extends gradually to the unit from the company. Health then becomes a right which the States must guarantee.

The development of industrialization is a second factor which tends to explain the development of the public health: on the one hand for simple criteria of productivity of the workmen, on the other hand by fear of the riots and under the pressure of the trade unions. Finally the First and the Second World war will contribute to the development of the medical assumption of responsibility of mass and to the installation of policies of social assistance: it is the birth of the concept of Welfare state .

Hygiene

Hygiene is the whole of the behaviors contributing to maintain the individual in good health. What good health? There are false generally accepted ideas on the subject (what arranges well the industrialists of products of hygiene). Indeed, good health is quite simply to respect a certain number of behaviors but more especially to preserve the fragile balance of our ecosystem. It would be naif to believe healthy systematically to exterminate all the micro-organisms of our environment (or on our skin) under the pretext which they are almost invisible or "very ugly". It is necessary to keep a right balance between each species with the risk to increase our risks of allergies, to even risk death by changing environment, for example at the time of a simple voyage abroad. This discipline thus aims at fighting against the environmental factors being able to contribute to a deterioration of health, like pollution for example. It should be noted that the improvement of the conditions of hygiene paradoxically could support the appearance of diseases like the poliomyelitis .

Way of life

It is known today that many factors of risk are related to the way of life. The body care, the physical activity, the food, the problems of drug-addiction... has a total impact on the health of the individuals.

Political and economic stakes

World-wide, the sums invested in health are considerable. For example, in 2002, the market of the drug was evaluated to 430,3 billion dollars (against 220 billion in 1992). Moreover medical consumption progresses more quickly than the GDP in the developed countries