Health — Wikipedia

The health East “A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and is not only in an absence of illness or infirmity” . In this definition by the World Health Organization, WHO, since 1946, health represents “One of the fundamental rights of every human being, whatever their race, religion, political opinions, economic or social condition” ^{[ first ] , [ Note 1 ]} . It implies the satisfaction of all the basic needs of the person, whether emotional, health, nutritional, social or cultural ^{[ 2 ]} . But this definition confuses the concepts of health and well-being ^{[ 3 ]} .

Moreover, “Health results from a constant interaction between the individual and his environment” and therefore represents “This” physical, psychic and social capacity of people to act in their environment and to fulfill the roles they intend to assume in an acceptable way for themselves and for the groups of which they are part ” ^{[ 4 ]} .

René Dubos presented health in 1973 as “The situation in which the organism reacts with an adaptation while preserving its individual integrity. It is the physical and mental state relatively free from discomfort and suffering that allows the individual to operate as long as possible in the environment where chance or the choice have placed it. »» ^{[ 3 ] , [ 5 ]}

For René Leriche in 1936, “Health is life in the silence of the organs. »» ^{[ 3 ] , [ 5 ]}

In traditional societies (“primitive”), health generally is as much of the individual as the group. It is nested with animist and religious beliefs, and the role of healers (shamans, wizards, etc.) who use both local pharmacopoeia, touch and practices under magic, divination, or psychology .

From the XVIII ^{It is} century, the disease gradually ceased to be considered a fatality and the body becomes a subject of concern. This movement first concerns the elites, then gradually extends to the whole of society. Health then becomes a right that states must guarantee.

The state of health is looking for both for each individual, with clinical medicine, or for a population, with public health ^{[ 6 ]} .

The health of a population is conventionally evaluated first by mortality and morbidity rates, with life expectancy ^{[ 7 ]} .

Notion relative [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Health is a relative concept ^{[ 8 ]} , “Sometimes not presented as a corollary of the absence of disease: people with various conditions are sometimes deemed” healthy “if their disease is controlled by treatment. On the contrary , some diseases can be asymptomatic for a long time, which means that people who feel in good health may not really be. »»

The state of health felt is one of the state of health indicators. It has been published every two years since 2002, for OECD countries. After an upward trend from 2002 to 2008, he dropped several points in 2010 “Whatever the age groups, the percentage of women and men considering themselves in good or very good health decreases in 2010. And when you consider the set of the sexes, it is the same for the quintile highest income ” ^{[ 9 ]} . In 2008, 74.9% of men were judged in good or very good health, compared to 70.6% in 2010. For women this rate increased from 70.1% to 66.5% ^{[ 9 ]} .

Mental Health [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Mental health can be considered a very important factor in physical health for the effects it produces on bodily functions. This type of health concerns emotional and cognitive well-being or lack of mental disorder ^{[ ten ]} . The World Health Organization (WHO) defines mental health as “State of well -being in which the individual realizes his own capacities, can face the ordinary tensions of life, and is capable of contributing to his community” ^{[ 11 ]} . There is no official definition of mental health. There are different types of mental health problems, some of which are commonly shared, such as depression and anxiety disorders, and other non -common, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

Reproductive health [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

For the World Health Organization (WHO), reproductive health is a component of the right to health ^{[ twelfth ]} .

This recent notion evokes the good transmission of genetic heritage from one generation to another. It involves the quality of the genome, sperm and eggs, but also through a maternity without risk, the absence of sexual and sexist violence, the absence of sexually transmitted diseases (MST), family planning, sex education , access to care, the decrease in exposure to endocrine disruptors, etc.

A certain number of pollutants (dioxins, pesticides, radiation, hormonal lures, etc.) are suspected of being, possibly at low or very low doses, responsible for a deletion of spermatogenesis or alteration of ovaries or processes of processes fertilization then of the development of the embryo. Some are also carcinogenic or mutagenic (they contribute to the increase in the risk of malformation and spontaneous abortion).

Reproductive health care cover a set of services, defined in the Action program of the International Conference on Population and Development (CIPD) held in Cairo (Egypt) in September 1994 : advice, information, education, communication and family planning services; pre and postnatal consultations, safe deliveries and care provided to the mother and child; appropriate prevention and treatment of sterility; prevention of abortion and management of its consequences; Treatment of genital infections, sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS; breast cancer and genital cancers, as well as any other reproductive health disorder; and active deterrence of dangerous practices such as female sexual mutilation.

Health at work [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Occupational health is one of the main health themes identified by the WHO ^{[ 13 ]} .

Health and Environment [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Planetary health [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

A health determinant is a factor that influences the health of a population either in isolation or in combination with other factors.

Hygiene [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Hygiene is the set of behaviors helping to maintain healthy individuals. They ask to be able in particular to share between the “good microbes” and those which are pathogenic or can become it in certain circumstances. These circumstances hygiene seeks to make them less likely, less frequent or deleted. After a hygienist phase, the short-term effectiveness of which is indisputable, appeared an increase in allergies, autoimmune diseases, antibiotic resistance and nosocomial diseases deemed concern. The search for just balance between risk exposure and usual medical solution is made difficult in a context of increased exposure to cocktails of complex pollutants (pesticides in particular) and hormonal disruptors, planetary societal and climatic modifications (cf. emerging diseases, Pandemic risk, zoonoses, risk of bioterrorism, etc.).

The fight against nosocomial infections in the hospital, or against food toxi-infections for example, was born after the discovery of asepsis under the influence for example of Ignace Semmelweis or Louis Pasteur. Individual and collective behaviors are of first importance in the fight against epidemics or pandemics.

This discipline of hygiene therefore aims to master environmental factors that can contribute to an impairment of health, such as pollution for example, with paradoxical problems to manage: for example, the improvement of hygiene conditions seems to have paradoxically Promote the reappearance of diseases such as polio and various autoimmune and allergies diseases.

Food and lifestyle [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Many risk factors are intrinsically linked to lifestyle. Body care, physical activity, food, work, drug addiction problems, in particular, have a global impact on the health of individuals.

Many risks and dangers are linked to the health field ^{[ 14 ]} , human evolution and also changes in its lifestyle are not without consequences. Food and new technologies are also risk factors in France and in the rest of the world. Rhythms, work rates; unsuitable gestures are very important factors on health. They lead to psychosomatic disorders and sometimes handicaps for life.

Four factors would considerably extend the duration of life ^{[ 15 ]} : absence of tobacco, consumption of alcohol equal to or less than half a glass per day, consumption of 5 fruits and vegetables per day, physical exercise of half an hour per day. The whole would give an increase in life expectancy of 14 years compared to non-compliance with these factors ^{[ 16 ]} .

From the strict point of view of the food, many concordant studies conclude that an exclusively vegetarian diet makes it possible to limit the risks of cancer and cardiovascular disease, and therefore to have a longer healthy life expectancy ^{[ 17 ] , [ 18 ]} . Studies highlight both the benefits of a diet rich in vegetables and fruits and the relative risks linked to the consumption of meat, fish and dairy products ^{[ 19 ] , [ 20 ] , [ 21 ] , [ 22 ]} . Synthetic food supplements would not be necessary ^{[ 23 ] , [ 24 ]} .

Other tracks are explored to lengthen healthy lifespan: fasting ^{[ 25 ]} , intermittent fasting ^{[ 26 ]} and caloric restriction ^{[ 27 ]} .

In addition, trans-national “moral hygienism” started at XIX ^{It is} Century (not to be confused with alternative medicine created by Herbert Shelton) is a doctrine against “relaxation of manners”, which would be the best way to guarantee health. It is this current which for example declared the fight against syphilis or alcoholism as a national priority. It is also he who declares that if the obese are large, it is because they are greedy and lazy, or that smokers have no will; He seems to persist in certain information and education campaigns of citizens in hygiene.

Environment [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

It is an area, sometimes called “environmental health”, which has developed since the end of XX ^{It is} century, following awareness of the fact that the environment, especially when polluted, is a major determinant of health.

Acute or chronic pollution, whether biological, chemical, due to ionizing radiation, or due to sounds or light (these factors that can add or multiply their effects) is an important source of diseases.

In the European Union, the Commission has adopted ( June 11, 2003 ) a “community health and environmental strategy” ^{[ 28 ]} , translated the June 9, 2004 , in a “action plan” ^{[ 29 ]} (2004-2010), which targets so-called “environmental” diseases. This concerns asthma and respiratory allergies, by more generally seeking to “better prevent health alterations due to the risk environment” (including exposure to pesticides and their residues). Permanent health monitoring systems must identify emerging threats (including nanotechnologies, GMOs, emerging diseases, impacts of climatic modifications, etc.) and assess its health impact according to actions carried out at community but also national level. An “environment and health action plan” will be developed in order to implement this strategy; In addition, a consultation process has been launched. The action plan aims to take stock of existing scientific knowledge and to assess the consistency and progress made in the installation of the community legislative framework in terms of health and environment. A new health information system is planned “which will also work in the field of environment” and wants to become “the most important source of reliable data for the assessment of the impact of environmental health factors” ^{[ 30 ]} . These aspects will be coordinated with rapid reaction systems and an integrated approach “aimed at curbing environmental determinants of health”.

Regarding France more specifically, a first national health-environment plan was launched in 2004 and a second in 2009, following the Grenelle de l’Environnement. The results of the actions carried out should be done in 2013.

Public health designates both the health state of a population assessed via health indicators (quantitative and qualitative, including access to care) and all collective means likely to treat, promote health and improve the living conditions.

Public health areas [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

The concept of public health includes several fields:

• occupational health including occupational medicine and sometimes epidemiological approaches;
• The management of prevention campaigns, which must influence the other sectors of society to promote health (economy, schools, traffic, housing, environment, lifestyle, etc.), vaccination, etc.;
• the organization of care networks: first aid, hospitals, liberal medicine, emergency medicine, etc.;
• the initial and continuous training of medical and paramedical professions;
• Social Security and Health Insurance (Social Security in France);
• Medical and pharmacological research.

Health policies in the world [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Health rules are the subject of international texts decreed by WHO or FAO (food codex for food).

The European Union has produced many directives, regulations or decisions to protect the health of consumers or animals consumed.

The promotion of health as defined by the WHO is the “process which gives populations the means to ensure greater control over their own health, and to improve it” ^{[ thirty first ]} . This approach is a concept defining “health” as the extent to which a group or an individual can on the one hand realize his ambitions and satisfy his needs, and on the other hand evolve with the environment or adapt to that -this.

Health is taken into account by law, including from the point of view of working conditions.

Sanitary crises [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Sanitary crises are important pandemics, which affect a dozen people (case of highly publicized crises that affect developed countries, such as certain food crises) and millions of people. They can have considerable economic, social and political costs.

The WHO has also been created so that a pandemic such as that produced by the Spanish flu does not happen again with the same effects (30 to 100 million deaths according to sources).

Economy [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

The sums at stake in the health field are considerable, both for the costs induced by illnesses, pollution ^{[ 32 ]} And absenteeism, only by the care and medication market (in 2002, the global drug market was estimated at $ 430.3 billion, compared to 220 billion in 1992). The pharmaceutical market increased by 203 billion euros. And medical consumption is growing faster than GDP in developed countries. Health business models evolves and changes the traditional and historic approach to health in France ^{[ 33 ]} , health crises such as a pandemic can have considerable economic, social and political costs binding on reformulations of economic approaches.

Social and cultural dimensions of health [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Health as a concept can be an object of anthropological study. As reported by Roy ^{[ 34 ]} , it is often conceptualized as a social construction by anthropologists since the relationship that societies have with it is very variable from one to the other, and according to the times. Anthropological work will therefore seek to better understand the experience What are the social and cultural groups of health do. This object of study, to show methodological rigor, must be replaced in its global context, in particular through social changes. We then seek to understand the phenomena of health/illness relationships, although more and more the health/life scheme takes place. To say otherwise, according to Massé ^{[ 35 ]} , medical anthropology is interested in how social actors define good or bad health, and how diseases are treated in this context.

Some theoretical approaches were born in medical anthropology, reported by Roy ^{[ 34 ]} . Among them, that of medico-ecological theory, that of phenomenology and that of the criticism of medicine and international health.

• Medico-ecological theory is formulated by Alexander Alland ^{[ 36 ]} In the early 1970s, but was taken up by others a few years later. It assumes that human groups adapt their culture to the environment. This theory proposes the idea that cultural adaptation is intimately linked to biological adaptation according to the environment and the environment in which the group is. Thus, health is linked to these external transformations.

• The phenomenological approach develops in parallel to the latter. Authors like Kleinman ^{[ 37 ]} the good ^{[ 38 ]} This is a point of origin, by seeking to restore subjectivity to the human experience of health, moving away from the objectivity recommended by medicine. To do this, experiential and semantic perspectives are mobilized.

• The critical approach to medicine and international health was developing in the 1960s. Its purpose is in particular political and economic conditions, therefore global, in which health and disease are experienced: social inequalities shape access to information, health maintenance resources and treatments. A key text to understand this movement is notably that of Baer, ​​Singer and Johnsen ^{[ 39 ]} .

Many media and programs specialize in health themes. Here is a selection:

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