Health As A Social Model Essay

In the last 150 years infectious diseases have disappeared and chronic diseases have risen. Epidemics such as obesity have caused the social models of health to improve order to more effectively improve the treatment of patients. A representation of this is the change from the medical model to the more modern socials model. This is due to current health epidemics being more complicated than just the patient’s physical health. With the increasing prevalence of obesity, diseases such as diabetes, ischemic heart disease and certain cancers have also increased. We can use health models effectively to better explain the causes of these diseases (Candlib, 2007). Therefore improving the general well being of a population effectively.

Health is the ability to function in everyday life. The WHO (World health organisation) defines health as: A state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being. Not merely the absence of disease or illness. In the nineteen hundreds the majority of diseases contracted were infectious diseases. These diseases affected the health of individuals who were poverty stricken (Graham, 2007). As a result of these …show more content…
Social models of health allow health professionals to see the social and distal factors that affect the epidemic a lot greater than the biological causes. The medical model only focuses on the biological factors and proximate causes of the epidemic (Browne, 2005). They do not factor in the other possible true factors that contribute to obesity. Social models place importance on both proximate and distal causes that consequently effect health directly or indirectly. The model highlights that our health is based on multiple determinants and how they interact with one another (Browne, 2005). By looking at these interactions we are able to see social factors clearer and therefore can be dealt with faster or in an improved