Balog Joseph E
Public Health and Health Education, The College at Brockport, SUNY.
Cureus. 2017 Feb 21;9(2):e1042. doi: 10.7759/cureus.1042.
In an era of value-based care, the practice of medicine and other health professions have been drawn to subjective, comprehensive and multidimensional views of health such as the World Health Organization(WHO) concept that defines health as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. This paper, through a philosophical analysis, demonstrates that health is not multidimensional and is a natural phenomenon. A philosophical discussion contends that health must realistically and logically reside in the person and this requires it to be a physical state. This paper also illustrates that, in the popular language of health, many times, health professionals: (1) inappropriately view health as a subjective human construct as opposed to viewing health as an objective phenomena, (2) confuse what is desired and valued as a good life with what is good health, and (3) fail to recognize the vital distinction between what affects health and what is health. A meaning of health is offered through several examples and arguments that demonstrate why health is a state of physical well-being or physical fitness that is defined by how well the body is functioning in accordance with its natural design and how well this natural design affords individuals the ability to achieve essential functional objectives of humans on the biological and person level.
在基于价值的医疗时代，医学及其他健康专业领域的实践已转向对健康的主观、全面和多维度观点，例如世界卫生组织（WHO）将健康定义为身体、心理和社会的完全良好状态，而不仅仅是没有疾病或虚弱的概念。本文通过哲学分析表明，健康并非多维度的，而是一种自然现象。一场哲学讨论认为，健康必须现实且逻辑地存在于个体之中，这就要求它是一种身体状态。本文还指出，在常见的健康表述中，健康专业人员很多时候：（1）不恰当地将健康视为一种主观的人类构建，而非客观现象；（2）将美好生活中所期望和重视的事物与健康本身相混淆；（3）未能认识到影响健康的因素与健康本身之间的关键区别。本文通过几个例子和论证给出了健康的一种定义，即健康是身体良好状态或身体健康的一种状态，它由身体按照其自然设计的运作情况以及这种自然设计赋予个体在生物和个人层面实现人类基本功能目标的能力来界定。
