Political Economy Model Of Disease

Health has been influenced by many factors such as poor health status, disease risk factors, and limited access to healthcare. All these factors are due to social, economic and environmental disadvantages. According to the World Organization (WHO) (2015), “the social determinants of health are mostly responsible for health inequities, which is the unfair and avoidable differences in health status seen within and between countries”

Infectious epidemics and pandemics have happened all through mankind's history. “They remain the prime cause of death worldwide and will not be conquered during our lifetimes.” The flu of 1918 was one of the deadliest epidemics in history. “It infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide–about one-third of the planet’s population at the time–and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims. More than 25 percent of the U.S. population became sick, and some 675,000 Americans died during the pandemic.” No one knew how the virus spread, there were no antibiotics to fight it, and no flu shots to prevent it. In the final year of World War I, it struck terror in the hearts of people all across Europe and left more death in its wake than the combined military actions of the combatants. “It killed more Americans in a few months than World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the

The book The Great Influenza by John Barry takes us back to arguably one of the greatest medical disasters in human history, the book focuses on the influenza pandemic which took place in the year 1918. The world was at war in the First World War and with everyone preoccupied with happenings in Europe and winning the war, the influenza pandemic struck when the human race was least ready and most distracted by happenings all over the world. In total the influenza pandemic killed over a hundred million people on a global scale, clearly more than most of the deadliest diseases in modern times. John Barry leaves little to imagination in his book as he gives a vivid description of the influenza pandemic of 1918 and exactly how this pandemic affected the human race. The book clearly outlines the human activities that more or less handed the human race to the influenza on a silver platter. “There was a war on, a war we had to win” (Barry, p.337). An element of focus in the book is the political happenings back at the time not only in the United States of America but also all over the world and how politicians playing politics set the way for perhaps the greatest pandemic in human history to massacre millions of people. The book also takes an evaluator look at the available medical installations and technological proficiencies and how the influenza pandemic has affected medicine all over the world.

This report will be investigating the various sociological perspectives on health as well as the models and definitions of health and ill health. These topics will assist in the understanding of how different people and different cultures react to ill health.

I have also found discrimination for people within HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis in my society because of lack of education. Furthermore, I also used to provide education as a health professional. I found it is effective for prevention of infectious diseases in case of socio-economic condition of people in Nepal where they have difficulty to access health care system and resources. In Nepal, we still believe in traditional treatment. Most people still use traditional medicine instead of using biomedicine of Western societies. “Unlike in the Australian context, in many poorer countries biomedicine is not the primary source of health care” (WHO as cited in Germov 2009, p.75).This may be due to unavailability of health care services in little distance. In contrast, I have found lifestyle health problems in Australia such as obesity, diabetes and cancer. Lifestyle behaviour is more likely to influence peoples’ health such as diet, exercise, smoking, alcohol and other drugs (Germov, 2009). I think it is exactly true as I have seen in modern Australian society that most of people are smoking and drinking alcohol which is affecting society in many ways, causing road traffic accidents and property damage. I think most people in Australia like to have junk food and go out for meals because of their busy life which can cause obesity. To examine why it is caused? I think it is a good idea to use social imagination to describe the different

Diseases can cause a devastating effect on both the human body, and also the human population. Throughout several time periods of the present and past, diseases have caused a humongous impact in several society's in different countries around the world. Several large pandemics and epidemics have killed off the population of many species including humans and primates. Wether the time period is in the present or as far back as the Middle Ages, each and every one of these diseases, have had a life threatening outbreak, across several developing countries. Three known diseases have all created a huge conflict on different civilizations, causing different, unanswered questions to arise. A lot of research has gone into each individual disease, to

These ideas are then taken and are informed to the reader; providing a detailed background on how one can develop diabetes, for example. Next, Moalem proceeds to explain the cause of these health issues, in relation to our everyday life styles and how technology, social adaptations, and environments have all evolved, in correlation to these issues. The author coherently depicts the idea of how evolution in the human race and means of society have also caused genetic adaptions and illnesses to evolve in a negative way; that our ancestors practically lived a healthier lifestyle than we do today; that our idea of medicine is not to heal illness naturally caused, but to heal illnesses that we have brought upon

There has been an extremely dangerous epidemic living in the United States since the 1970’s. This epidemic is like no other, doctors have not found any cure plus, it is easily contagious. The named of this epidemic is name acquired immune deficiency syndrome, best known as AIDS. The United States Health Department created a program in order to investigate and try to find some form of cure for such epidemic. THE U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which president is name Dr. Gayle, is the department in charge of determining a cure for AIDS. This writing will analyze the main political, social, and economic forces that arose in this situation. Next, it will express how Dr. Gayle utilized this three political resource of a public agency. Finally, it will determine how some agencies and organizations were put in the equation.

Public health has always been an issue for mankind. It was an issue in the Medieval Ages, an issue during Imperialism, an issue during the Industrial Revolution, and is still an issue to this day. Public Health doesn’t just involve disease either; it involves birth/death rates, life expectancy, pollution, and even drug use. There are many different initiatives for trying to contain or eliminate these problems and with these decisions comes social inequalities. Public health initiatives have challenged or reinforced these social inequalities based on race, class, and gender over the last 200 years based on the way the public health agencies and the public have handled the issues, who was blamed for these problems, and how technologies for health

With this viewpoint, one points to how defeats in the health care system affect not only the prosperity of an individual, but also the health of other social establishments, such as the economy and families. This perspective looks at how societal changes effect health and contribute it to the development of societies, which lead to better living conditions. When a society develops, life expectancy increases and birth rates decrease. Also, the main source of death and disability transfer from infectious diseases, to chronic, non-infectious diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, arthritis and heart disease. Along with social changes affecting health, health affects social change.

Health is a complex concept, and global health adds to this complexity. When I think of health as a concept, I view it as being absent of disease. This understanding is a very biomedical approach to health and is a very narrow viewpoint of health. According to the World Health Organization (1948), health is defined as a “state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (a cited by Jacobsen p. 2). This definition does give a better understanding of what health is from a broader perspective. At the University of Victoria’s Global Health class, I have become to understand better the WHO’s definition and that it is linked to the social determinants of health. In this paper, I will reflect and analyze the learning that occurred for myself while taking the Global Health class, and how this knowledge has helped my nursing practice evolve at the local and international level.

In his article, “Disease Etiologies in Non­Western Medical Systems,” George Foster uses the understanding of disease etiology of various cultures to discern two model ethnomedical healing systems- Naturalistic and Personalistic. The assumed cause of a disease directs the ways the society responds to illness, including techniques for diagnosis, cure, prevention, etc. (Foster 112); therefore, understanding a culture’s assumptions of disease causality is the most important step towards studying an ethnomedical system. The core assumption of a naturalistic system is that diseases are imbalances triggered by natural forces like excess cold, heat, dampness, or other physiological pathogens; contrastingly, the personalistic assumption considers “active

Global health is defined as “health problems, issues, or concerns that transcend national borders” (Institute of Medicine, 1997, p. 2). Koplan (2009) proposed a new definition for global health which he described as an “area for study, research and practice that places a priority on improving health and achieving equity in health for all people worldwide” (para, 7). Global health emphasizes transnational health issues, determinants, and solutions from an interdisciplinary perspective and blends population health and clinical care.

Another concern to global health is the fact that not all illnesses are recognized and treated within a biomedical paradigm. Specifically, somatic syndromes are ambiguous disorders that are not classified within a Western medical institution, and are hard to treat when using only a biomedical diagnostics. Since globalization and mass migration is rapidly impacting the world, it would seem crucial to understand how health and disease is studied within a global context. However, medical anthropologists tend to take either a biocultural

This essay will focus on the biomedical and social model of health. It will be critically discussing both models using supporting theories and highlighting the limitations of each. This essay will also discuss and analyse how both models relate to lay perspectives on health and illness.