The 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 the World Health Organization (WHO). This definition WHO was not modified since 1946.
Elle implies that all the fundamental needs for the person are satisfied, that they are emotional, medical, nutritional, social or cultural and of the stage of the embryo, even of the gamètes to that of the elderly.
Elle is thus presented rather in the form of an objective, that some will judge utopian since it classifies, according to the studied country, from 70 to 99% of people like not being in good health or patient. One can prefer to him that of Rene Dubos: “Physical status and mental relatively of embarrassments and sufferings which makes it possible 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 bien-être.
All in all, health it is when all functions well, that all hums, body like mental. One also speaks about mental health, of reproductive health.

It is a relative state. One says of a person that it is in " good santé" or in " bad santé".

Relativity of the concepts of diseases, traumatisms and infirmities

health is a precarious state which does not let predict anything good (Jules Romains in Knock ) and
the life is a fatal disease sexually transmissible which is caught with the birth and inevitably concludes itself by death (anonymous).

Health is a relative concept, sometimes not presented like corollary of the absence of disease: People carrying various affections are sometimes judged " into good santé" if their disease is controlled by a treatment. As of the middle of the XXe century, specialists in the diabetes thus spoke about “ health insulinienne ”. Today, this irrefutable 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 people who feel in good health really can not the being.

( See also the articles Disease and Handicap )

Public health

The public health indicates at the same time the medical condition of a population appreciated via Indicateur S of health (quantitative and qualitative, of which the access to the care), and the whole of the average collectives likely to look after, promote health and to improve the living conditions.

In the primitive companies health raises generally as much of the individual that group. It is intricate with the beliefs animists and nuns, and the role of the healers (Shaman, wizard, etc) who use at the same time the local pharmacopeia, the touch and of the practices concerned with the magic, the divination, or psychology.

In Europe, the organization of the care remained until the 19th century very mainly dependant on private initiatives and caritative works (the role of the religious institutions was a long time prevalent, the assistance with the patients being regarded as a charity work).

As from the 18th century, 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 (Occupational medicine), 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 État-providence. After the Pandemia of Spanish Influenza of 1918, the public health takes a world dimension with WHO. The ecoepidemiology develops for better following the transmissible zoonoses to the man, via in particular a collaboration with FAO and of the GOOSE under the aegis of UNO. Europe tends to take more importance in the field of health.

The concept of public health gathers several fields:

  • health at the work including the Occupational medicine and sometimes the epidemiologic steps

  • the management of the campaigns of Prévention, which must influence the other sectors of the company to promote health there (economy, schools, traffic, dwelling, environment, lifestyle, etc), the Vaccination…
  • the organization of the networks of care: First aid, hospital, liberal medicine, emergency medicine…
  • initial training and continues medical and ancillary medical professions
  • the Social security and the Health insurance (Social security in France)
  • medical research and pharmacological

Health-environment

It is a field (sometimes named " environmental health " who develops since the end of the XXème century, following the awakening owing to the fact that environment, in particular when it is polluted is determining major health.

In the EU : The Commission adopted (June 11th, 2003) a “ Communautaire strategy health environment” , translated on June 9th, 2004, in a “Action plan ” (2004-2010), which aims in particular the diseases known as " environnementales" , of which the Asthma and the respiratory Allergy S, while more generally seeking with “ to better prevent deteriorations of health due to the environmental risks” (of which the exposure to the pesticides and their residues). Systems of permanent Health monitoring must identify them (of which nanotechnologies, GMO, diseases émergeantes, impacts of the climatic modifications.) and to evaluate the impact medical of the actions carried out at community level but so national. A “action plan health and environment ” will be developed in order to implement this strategy, moreover one process of consultation was initiated. the action plan aims giving a progress report on the existing scientific knowledge and at evaluating the coherence and the progress made in the implementation of the Community legislative framework health Environnement. A new information system on health is envisaged " which will also function in the field of the environment " and the most important reliable data source wants to become “ for the evaluation of the impact of the environmental factors on health ”. These aspects will be coordinated with the systems of fast reaction and an integrated approach “ aiming at suppressing the environmental determinants of health ”.

Hygiene

The Hygiène is the whole of the behaviors contributing to maintain the individuals in good health. They ask in particular to be able to make the share between the good microbes and those which are pathogenic or can become it in certain circumstances; circumstances which hygiene seeks to make less probable, less frequent or removed. After a phase hygienist whose effectiveness of short term is indisputable, appeared an increase in the allergies, autoimmune diseases, antibiorésistances and diseases nosocomiales considered to be alarming. The search for right balances between exposure to the risk and medical solutions is in hand is made difficult in a context of exposure increased to cocktails of Polluant S complexes (Pesticide S in particular) and disturbing hormonal, modifications sociétales and climatic planet gears (cf emergent diseases, pandemic Risque, Zoonose S, risk of Bioterrorisme.),

This discipline thus aims at controlling the factors Environnement with which can contribute to a deterioration of health, like the Pollution for example, with paradoxical problems to manage: for example, the improvement of the conditions of hygiene paradoxically seems to have been able to support the reappearance of diseases like the Poliomyélite and various autoimmune diseases and allergies.

Lifestyle

Many risk factors are intrinsically related to the lifestyle. The body care, the physical-activity, the food, work, the problems of drug-addiction… has a total impact on the health of the individuals.

moral sanitarianism (not to be confused with the Alternative medicine created by Herbert Shelton) is the doctrines according to which: the fight against the “loosening of moral standards” would be the best means of guaranteeing health. It is this current which has for example at the 19th century declared the fight against the Syphilis or the Alcoolisme national priority. It is also him which declares that if the Obèse S are large, it is that they are greedy and lazy, or that the smokers do not have will. It seems to persist in certain policies and campaigns of information and education of the citizens to hygiene.

Collective hygiene

The fight against the infections nosocomiales at the hospital, or against the food toxinfections for example, was born after the discovery from the Asepsie under the influence for example from Ignàc Semmelweiss or Louis Pasteur. The individual and collective behaviors are of very first importance in the fight against the epidemic S or the Pandémie S.

The Pollution acute or chronic, that it is biological, chemical, due to ionizing radiations, or sound, or luminous (these factors being able to add or multiply their effects) is also an important source of diseases.

Promotion of Health

The promotion of health as defined by WHO is the process which confers on the populations the means of ensuring a greater control on their clean Santé, and to improve this one . This step concerns a concept defining the " santé" as the extent to which a group or an individual can on the one hand, to carry out its ambitions and to satisfy its needs and, on the other hand, to evolve/move with the medium or to adapt to this one.

See also:

Reproductive health

For UNO, the reproductive health is a right, like the other rights of Homme.
Cette recent concept evokes the good transmission of the inheritance Génétique from one generation to another. It passes by quality of the Génome, the Spermatozoïde S and the Ovule S, but also by a maternity without risk, the absence of sexual violences and sexists, the Sexually transmitted diseases (MST), family planning, the sex education, the access to the care, the reduction in the exposure to the Perturbateurs endocriniens, etc

A certain number of pollutants (Dioxane S, Pesticide S, Radiation S, hormonal lures, etc) are suspectés to be, possibly with weak or very low dose responsible for a délétion for the spermatogenèse or deterioration for the ovaries or processes of fecundation then of development of the embryo). Some are also carcinogenic or mutagen (they contribute to the increase in the risk of malformation and miscarriage).

the health care reproductive :

They recover a whole of services, defined in the Action plan of the International Conference on the population and development (CIPD) behavior in Cairo (Egypt) in September 1994: councils, information, education, communication and services of family planning; pre and postnatal consultations, childbirth in full safety and care lavished on the mother and the child; prevention and suitable treatment of sterility; prevention of the abortion and assumption of responsibility of its consequences; treatment of the genital infections, sexually transmitted diseases including HIV /SIDA; the genital Breast cancer and cancers, like all other disturb reproductive health; and dissuasion activates dangerous practices such as the female sexual mutilations.

Policy issues, legal and economic

The sums concerned in the field of health are considerable, so much at the costs induced by the diseases, pollution and absenteeism, that by the market of the care and the drugs (In 2002, the worldwide market of the drug was evaluated to 430,3 billion dollars, against 220 billion in 1992). The pharmaceutical market increased by 203 billion euros. And medical consumption progresses more quickly than GDP in the developed countries.

Medical crises such as a pandemia can have economic costs, social and political considerable. WHO was created besides so that a Pandémie such as that produced by the Spanish Grippe does not reproduce with the same effects (30 to 100 million died according to the sources).

Health is thus taken into account by the Droit, there compri from the point of view of the Work conditions.

The rules as regards health make the objects of international texts enacted by WHO or FAO (Codex alimentarius for the food).
Europe produced many Directive S, payment S or Décision S to protect health from the Consommateur S or consumed animals.
In France , new the Public health code into force since May 2003 (subject to changes) wants (L1110-1 Article) that all the means available for the benefit of any person are implemented to protect its health by the professionals, the establishments and the networks of health, like by the organizations of Health insurance or any other organization contributing to the Prévention and the care. The health authorities must contribute with the users, to develop the prevention, in a preoccupation with equal acces of each one and all to the care which its health condition requires. It is also a question of ensuring the continuity of the care as well as best the possible Public health. The patient is entitled to the respect of his Dignité specifies the Law nº 2002-303 of March 4th, 2002 art 3, thus (except exemptions stipulated by the law) that with the respect of its private life and the secrecy of information relating to it. source. A priority orientation of the National plan health environment (PNSE, version June 2004) is to promote environmental health. Announced in January 2003, this plan adopted on June 21st, 2004 (for five years) was written under the authority of the ministers in charge for health, ecology, work and research, and within the framework of the Charte of the environment and in that of the European strategy of the World Health Organization. This PNSE could be reinforced following the Grenelle of the environment (Oct. 2007).
un file “file " Health and environment: stakes and keys of reading” was published with the Ademe, ENSP, Ineris, InVS, Inpes, FNE and FNES which collaborates with the ministry in charge with health and ecology on the environmental majority of the health questions.
Un chapter “ Environment and health ” was added to the report/ratio “ Environnemen in France ” published by IFEN every 4 years.
Un (PST) was presented to managements and labor at the time of plenary of the Superior council of Prevention of the Occupational hazards , formalizing for 5 years engagements of the State towards the 15 million French employees on their work place.
Une study " ''PERPLEX''" (Perception of the Risk S by the Public and the Expert S) was ordered by IRSN and made with Ademe, Afssa, Ifen, Ineris, Inra and InVS it (PERPLEX) with institute BVA for better including/understanding evaluates the differences in perception of the risk by the general public and the experts of the agencies or organizations of public expertise. This study showed that French is often more severe than lesexperts, than they considers the risks higher and grant less their confidence to the authorities, than they estimate more often than all the truth is not known as on the dangers. However, according to the study, the experts and institutional treat on a hierarchical basis generally about same manner the risks.
La Directive Reach will have to be applied in France, and of the specific plans were written on the Amiante topics, Bruit, Canicule, Cancer, Déchets, Éthers of glycol, Froid, Avian flu (written by the ministry for Defense), Inondations, Légionellose, Nitrates, PCB and PCT, Pesticides, Phytosanitaires, Pollutions of origin agricultural, POP, Risques technological, polluted Sites and grounds. In the field of the air and climate, plans are in hand; Plan climate, Plan conveys clean and sparing, biocarburants National plan, National plan of assignment of the quotas of carbon dioxide emissions, National plan of reduction of the atmospheric pollution emissions (SO2, Nox, COV, NH3), Primequal-Predicts. They are periodically updated or evaluated.

See too

Quotations

  • “O health! Health! Blessing of the rich person! Richness of the poor! Who can acquire you at a too high price, since there is no joy in this world without you? ” Ben Jonson, Extrait from does Volpone
  • “Exist for the man a good more invaluable than Health? ” Socrate
  • “best health, it is not to feel its health. ” Jules Fox, Extrait from its Newspaper
  • “work it is health; nothing to make, it is to preserve it. ” the poorest Henri Salvador
  • “would not exchange its health for money, but richest all its money for health would give. ” Charles Caleb Colton, Extract of Lacon gold many things in few words
  • “Following the example idea wanting that the State guarantees the research of happiness, the modern search of health is the fruit of a possessive individualism. ” Ivan Illich, Extracted from the renouncement of health.
  • “health, it is a healthy mind in a healthy body. ” Extracted the Satires of Juvénal.
  • “I decided to be happy because they is good for health. ” Voltaire
  • “It is a tedious disease which a health preserved by a too great mode. ” Montesquieu
  • “the only question which relates to health is " what does one make with? " ” John Davison Rockefeller

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