What is Human Health and Welfare ?

The World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO) defines health as “a con­di­tion of com­plete phys­i­cal, men­tal, and social well-being, not only the absence of dis­ease or infir­mi­ty,” which is a broad and wide­ly accept­ed def­i­n­i­tion. The abil­i­ty to per­form effi­cient­ly with­in a par­tic­u­lar envi­ron­ment is a mea­sure of health envi­ron­ment. Because the phys­i­cal, bio­log­i­cal, and social envi­ron­ments are always chang­ing, Good health is a process that evolves over the course of a per­son­’s life. Adapt­ing to such adjust­ments on a con­tin­u­ous basis.

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“The aspect of pub­lic health con­cerned with all exter­nal con­di­tions such as all kinds of life, sub­stances, forces, issues and dif­fi­cul­ties, and any oth­er sit­u­a­tion in the sur­round­ings of human beings that may exert an influ­ence on their health and well-being,” accord­ing to the def­i­n­i­tion. In this sense, dis­ease is a mis­ad­just­ment of the human per­son to his or her surroundings.

Although ancient civil­i­sa­tions were aware of the impact of the envi­ron­ment on health, it was only after the Indus­tri­al Rev­o­lu­tion in 1842 that Europe realised the need of a clean envi­ron­ment in mod­ern times. The event was dubbed “the Great San­i­tary Awak­en­ing.” As a result, the dis­ci­pline of Pub­lic Health was cre­at­ed. It was defined as the sci­ence and art of pre­vent­ing dis­ease, extend­ing life, and improv­ing health and effi­cien­cy through coor­di­nat­ed com­mu­nal efforts.

So far, in poor nations like ours, con­sid­er­able progress toward such desir­able pub­lic health goals has not been made. Improved san­i­tary con­di­tions, on the oth­er hand, have near­ly erad­i­cat­ed com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases in afflu­ent coun­tries. As a result, the focus of pub­lic health has shift­ed to the pre­ven­tion, treat­ment, and reha­bil­i­ta­tion of chron­ic dis­eases and behav­iour­al dis­or­ders such as smok­ing, drug mis­use, and alco­holism, which are com­mon in these coun­tries. As a result, pub­lic health now places a pre­mi­um on the plan­ning and assess­ment of health-relat­ed activ­i­ties, pro­grammes, and sys­tems. As a result of these dif­fi­cul­ties, pub­lic health has been renamed ‘Com­mu­ni­ty Health.’

Community Health

Com­mu­ni­ty health is a broad­er term that incor­po­rates all com­mu­ni­ty-orga­nized actions aimed at pre­serv­ing, pro­tect­ing, and improv­ing peo­ple’s health. It entails moti­vat­ing indi­vid­u­als and groups to change their behav­iour pat­terns. It also aims to arrange med­ical care in order to attain opti­mal health for the com­mu­ni­ty as a whole. Com­mu­ni­ty health was pre­vi­ous­ly includ­ed in Hygiene, Pub­lic Health, or Pre­ven­tive and Social Medicine.

Instead of exam­in­ing indi­vid­u­als as patients, it is crit­i­cal to recog­nise that the patient rep­re­sents the com­mu­ni­ty in com­mu­ni­ty health: 

The abil­i­ty to diag­nose dis­ease in the com­mu­ni­ty (also known as com­mu­ni­ty diag­no­sis) is critical.

The goal is to plan ther­a­py for the entire community.