CHAPTER VI.

GENERAL CONCEPTS OF HEALTH AND DISEASES

I. LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
After the completion of the unit, students will be able to:
1. Explain the concept of health in different human aspects.
2. Discuss how different factors can affect health.
3. Determine how health is applied to different aspects of life.
4. Explain the basic concepts of diseases.

II. READINESS ACTIVITY:

Let the students reflect on the following:
1. What is health?
2. What are the factors affecting human health and wellness?
3. What is a disease?
4. How can we prevent diseases?

III. LESSON CONTENT

What is Health?

In the Oxford English Dictionary health is defined as: ‘the state of being free from
sickness, injury, disease, bodily conditions; something indicating good bodily
condition.” Clearly, health is not quite as simple as the definition implies. The concept of
health is wide and the way we define health also depends on individual perception, religious
beliefs, cultural values, norms, and social class. Generally, there are two different
perspectives concerning people’s own definitions of health: a narrow perspective and a
broader perspective.

People with a narrow perspective consider health as the absence of disease or disability or
biological dysfunction. According to this view (or model), to call someone unhealthy or sick
means there should be evidence of a particular illness. Social, emotional, and psychological
factors are not believed to cause unhealthy conditions. This model is narrow and limits the
definition of health to the physical and physiological capabilities that are necessary to
perform routine tasks. According to this definition, the individual is healthy if all the body
parts, cells, tissues, and organ systems are functioning well and there is no apparent
dysfunction of the body. Using this model people view the human body in the same terms
as a computer, or mechanical device, when something is wrong, you take it to experts who
maintain it. Physicians, unlike behavioral experts, often focus on treatment and clinical
interventions with medication rather than educational interventions to bring about behavior
change.

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The most widely used of the broader definitions of health is that within the constitution of
the World Health Organization (WHO), which defines health as: A state of complete
physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or
infirmity. This classic definition is important, as it identifies the vital components of health.
Well-being includes the presence of positive emotions and moods (e.g., contentment,
happiness), the absence of negative emotions (e.g., depression, anxiety), satisfaction with
life, fulfillment, and positive functioning. In simple terms, well-being can be described as
judging life positively and feeling good. Well-being is associated with numerous health-,
job-, family-, and economically related benefits. For example, higher levels of well-being are
associated with decreased risk of disease, illness, and injury; better immune functioning;
speedier recovery; and increased longevity. Individuals with high levels of well-being are
more productive at work and are more likely to contribute to their communities. Many
practitioners have expanded their focus to include wellness at the positive end of the health
continuum. Wellness is being in good physical and mental health. Because mental health
and physical health are linked, problems in one area can impact the other. At the same
time, improving your physical health can also benefit your mental health, and vice versa. It
is important to make healthy choices for both your physical and mental well-being.
Remember that wellness is not just the absence of illness or stress. One can still strive for
wellness even if he/she is experiencing these challenges in life. To understand the meaning
of health more fully, it is important to understand each of its individual components.

Determinants of Health

Determinants are defined as those predisposing factors that influence the health of a
particular community. The main factors affecting individual and community health are:

 Intrinsic factors. These are the factors pertaining to the intrinsic nature of the
human individual. It may be affected by biological factors, socio-economic
disposition, and lifestyle.
 Extrinsic factors. These pertain to what is external to the host, may it be living or
non-living and with which he is in constant interaction. Simply put, these pertain to
the human environment that may be subdivided in to the physical, biological, and
psychological factors.
 Risk factors. These are the attributes or exposure that is significantly associated
with the development or acquisition of a certain disease. Health risks may be
causative, contributory, or predictive. A person can have one risk factor for a
disease, or he/she can have many. The more risk factors a person has, the more
likely he/she will get the disease. For example, if people eat healthy, exercise on a
regular basis, and control blood pressure, their chances of getting heart disease are
less than those of diabetics, smokers, and sedentary people. To lower your risks,
take small steps toward engaging in a healthy lifestyle, and you’ll see big rewards.

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Dimensions of Health

Learning about the six dimensions of health can help a person choose how to make
wellness a part of everyday life. Wellness strategies are practical ways to start developing
healthy habits that can have a positive impact on physical and mental health.

 Physical - Body size and functioning; recognizing the need for physical activity,
healthy foods, and adequate sleep; avoiding unhealthy habits
 Social - Developing a sense of connection, belonging, and sustained support
system; having positive relationships
 Intellectual - Recognizing creative abilities and finding ways to expand knowledge
and skills; being open-minded
 Emotional - Coping effectively with life and expressing emotions in an appropriate
manner
 Spiritual - Having a sense of purpose and meaning in life; establishing peace,
harmony, and balance in our lives
 Environmental - Occupying pleasant, healthy, and safe environments that support
wellbeing; positively impacting the quality of our surroundings (including protecting
and preserving nature)
Diseases

Dis-ease (from old French and ultimately Latin) is literally the absence of ease or elbow
room. The basic idea is of an impediment to free movement. But nowadays the word is
more commonly used without a hyphen to refer to a “disorder of structure or function in an
animal or plant of such a degree as to produce or threaten to produce detectable illness or
disorder”—or again, more narrowly, to “a definable variety of such a disorder, usually with
specific signs or symptoms or affecting a specific location”. That at least is how the New
Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines it, adding as synonyms: “(an) illness”, “(a) sickness”. Let
me stay with the dictionary to see what it says about those synonyms.
Illness has three definitions. Two of them are of the way the word was used up to the 18th
century—to mean either “wickedness, depravity, immorality”, or “unpleasantness,
disagreeableness, hurtfulness”. These older meanings reflect the fact that the word “ill” is a
contracted form of “evil”. The third meaning, dating from the 17th century, is the modern
one: “Ill health; the state of being ill”. The dictionary defines “ill” in this third sense as “a
disease, a sickness”. Looking up “sickness” we find “The condition of being sick or ill;
illness, ill health”; and under “sick” (a Germanic word whose ultimate origin is unknown but
may be onomatopoeic) we find “affected by illness, unwell, ailing … not in a healthy state”,
and, of course, “being inclined to vomit”.
There is a rather unhelpful circularity about these dictionary definitions. But dictionaries of
the English language usually only aim to tell us the origins of words and how they have
been used historically. They do not aim at the much more contestable goal of conceptual
clarity. For that we have to look elsewhere. In this case, let us look at how disease, illness
and sickness have been elucidated first by a medical practitioner, who ought to know

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something about the subject; and then, after noting some popular and literary definitions, by
a philosopher, who ought to know something about conceptual clarity.
The three concepts related to the overall state of unhealthiness – diseases, illnesses, and
sicknesses - are often interchangeably used to define each other. For further clarification,
they are defined as follows:
 Disease is a pathological process, most often physical as in throat infection, or cancer of
the bronchus, sometimes undetermined in origin, as in schizophrenia. The quality which
identifies disease is some deviation from a biological norm. There is an objectivity about
disease which doctors are able to see, touch, measure, smell. Diseases are valued as
the central facts in the medical view.
 Illness is a feeling, an experience of unhealth which is entirely personal, interior to the
person of the patient. Often it accompanies disease, but the disease may be undeclared,
as in the early stages of cancer or tuberculosis or diabetes. Sometimes illness exists
where no disease can be found. Traditional medical education has made the deafening
silence of illness-in-the-absence-of-disease unbearable to the clinician. The patient can
offer the doctor nothing to satisfy his senses
 Sickness is the external and public mode of unhealth. Sickness is a social role, a status,
a negotiated position in the world, a bargain struck between the person henceforward
called ‘sick’, and a society which is prepared to recognize and sustain him. The security
of this role depends on a number of factors, not least the possession of that much
treasured gift, the disease. Sickness based on illness alone is a most uncertain status.
But even the possession of disease does not guarantee equity in sickness. Those with a
chronic disease are much less secure than those with an acute one; those with a
psychiatric disease than those with a surgical one. Best is an acute physical disease in a
young man quickly determined by recovery or death—either will do, both are equally
regarded.
Disease then, is the pathological process, deviation from a biological norm. Illness is the
patient's experience of ill health, sometimes when no disease can be found. Sickness is the
role negotiated with society.
Levels of Disease Prevention
Prevention includes a wide range of activities — known as “interventions” — aimed at
reducing risks or threats to health. You may have heard researchers and health experts talk
about four categories of prevention: primordial, primary, secondary, and tertiary. What do
they mean by these terms?
 Primordial. It is a new concept emerging out, where efforts are made to prevent
emergence development of risk factor, through change of food habits, smoking,
exercise, naturopathy, and yoga.
 Primary. Primary prevention aims to prevent disease or injury before it ever occurs.
This is done by preventing exposures to hazards that cause disease or injury,
altering unhealthy or unsafe behaviors that can lead to disease or injury, and
increasing resistance to disease or injury should exposure occur. Examples include:

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o Legislation and enforcement to ban or control the use of hazardous products

(e.g., asbestos) or to mandate safe and healthy practices (e.g., use of
seatbelts and bike helmets)
o Education about healthy and safe habits (e.g., eating well, exercising
regularly, not smoking)
o Immunization against infectious diseases.
 Secondary. Secondary prevention aims to reduce the impact of a disease or injury
that has already occurred. This is done by detecting and treating disease or injury
as soon as possible to halt or slow its progress, encouraging personal strategies to
prevent re-injury or recurrence, and implementing programs to return people to their
original health and function to prevent long-term problems. Examples include:
o Regular exams and screening tests to detect disease in its earliest stages
(e.g., mammograms to detect breast cancer)
o Daily, low-dose aspirins and/or diet and exercise programs to prevent further
heart attacks or strokes
o Suitably modified work so injured or ill workers can return safely to their jobs
 Tertiary. Tertiary prevention aims to soften the impact of an ongoing illness or injury
that has lasting effects. This is done by helping people manage long-term, often-
complex health problems and injuries (e.g., chronic diseases, permanent
impairments) in order to improve as much as possible their ability to function, their
quality of life and their life expectancy. Examples include:
o Cardiac or stroke rehabilitation programs, chronic disease management
programs (e.g., for diabetes, arthritis, depression, etc.)
o Support groups that allow members to share strategies for living well
o Vocational rehabilitation programs to retrain workers for new jobs when they
have recovered as much as possible.

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