Health

Calls for 'smartphone free' childhood grow in UK

It is the question many adults dread being asked by their children: when can I have a smartphone? But as fears grow about the impact of the gadgets on young minds, some UK parents are fighting back.

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Dengue is sweeping through the Americas early this year

Dengue is surging across the Americas early this year from Puerto Rico to Brazil, with 3.5 million cases of the tropical disease reported so far, health officials said Thursday.

Health

Pandemic accord talks heading for extra time

Two years of talks aimed at striking a landmark global agreement on how to handle the next pandemics were headed for overtime Thursday, with a breakthrough still elusive.

page 1 from 40

Health

At the time of the creation of the World Health Organization (WHO), in 1948, Health was defined as being "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity".

This definition invited nations to expand the conceptual framework of their health systems beyond issues related to the physical condition of individuals and their diseases, and it motivated us to focus our attention on what we now call social determinants of health. Consequently, WHO challenged political, academic, community, and professional organisations devoted to improving or preserving health to make the scope of their work explicit, including their rationale for allocating resources. This opened the door for public accountability [3].

Only a handful of publications have focused specifically on the definition of health and its evolution in the first 6 decades. Some of them highlight its lack of operational value and the problem created by use of the word "complete." Others declare the definition, which has not been modified since 1948, "simply a bad one." [4]. More recently, Smith suggested that it is "a ludicrous definition that would leave most of us unhealthy most of the time." [5].

In 1986, the WHO, in the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, said that health is "a resource for everyday life, not the objective of living. Health is a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities." Classification systems such as the WHO Family of International Classifications (WHO-FIC), which is composed of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) also define health.

Overall health is achieved through a combination of physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being, which, together is commonly referred to as the Health Triangle.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA