Introduction
This paper actually sets the global health scene, and it does so by introducing definitions central to an understanding of health and disease. It addresses a broad spectrum of health challenges and local responses to them in a rapidly globalizing world. It also introduces the health transmissions, which provide a framework for explaining and describing major trends in health and disease. (Kunitz, 1987).
Health status or disease status
Health has a wide meaning which actually ranges from an ideal state to the absence of a medically defined and certified disease. Health as an ideal state has been encapsulated in the original and inspirational World Health Organization (WHO) definition: ‘health is a state of complete mental, physical and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’ 1. The definition reflects the optimism at the end of the Second World War. Fortunately, health, in this vision, is attainable. Some individuals may be in this state, and the population as a whole will be free of pre-mature death, disease or disability because of their close interaction with a changing environment.
During the 1980s WHO actually promoted a more realistic definition of health. In this case, health is a means to an end. People do not actually consider themselves to be in good health when they have disabilities, but they actually see their health to be actually affected. So, in this case, The WHO definition of health can be criticised. Health is also not a means to an end, but it’s itself the end. People don’t actually function normally when they have disabilities, but they actually see themselves as been neglected just because of their bad health.
The categorization of individuals into one of three current states of health, for example, ‘good; fair; poor’, has been shown to predict future health outcomes with a surprising degree of accuracy; expectations for health clearly differ between young and old people, and by culture and gender. WHO has recently undertaken a multicountry survey using a standardized health survey status instrument together with new statistical methods for adjusting biases in self-reported health?(Kunitz, 1987).
Health transition pattern on fertility and mortality
Health transition describes shifts in the pattern and the causes of death that have actually taken place in most of the countries today. Demographic transition or the mortality transition was used by demographers to refer to the change from the high fertile and high mortality rates, and this was in the traditional societies to the low fertile to low mortality, and this was in the modern societies.
Health transition involves the social and behavioural changes which parallel and propel the epidemiological transition. Rapid mortality decline has been a result of an increase in life expectancy at birth, and these are estimates from the world bank got from 14 developing countries. in contrast, rapid fertility decline from the 11 selected countries from the developing countries can be represented by a decline in the fertility rate of about 0.22 years. Research has also shown that in developing countries, there will be grown during the next century despite the rapid decline in the fertility rate.( Yusuf, Reddy, Ounpuu, & Anand,2001)
Advantages of health, disease and health transition
The WHO initiative of which was taken recently in a multicountry survey using standardized health survey status instruments together with new statistical methods for adjusting biases in self-reported health, has actually been a good initiative in the sense that people are in a position to understand their health and the various diseases and how to treat them. You find that if people are in a position to understand themselves and the environment, then they are in a position to maintain good health. You find that family physicians are the most advantaged, for instance, in Turkey regarding prescriptions privileges.
In the WHO definition of health whereby they said that health is created by removing obstacles and by provi9ding the basic means by which individual goals can be achieved. In this, then you find that people are in a position to maintain their environment clean by actually removing the obstacles that may lead to poor health. By maintaining the environment clean, then you find that people are secure from the transmitters of various diseases. By providing the essentials of good health, which include the following, safe water, safety, food, shelter and hope then you find that people are in a position to stay longer without any health problems.
If people want actually to develop their potentials, they do need certain basics like education, information and a sense of community in which they do belong. It is argued that these essentials have a long term effect on the lives of individuals. You find that the epidemiologists are criticized for working on narrow health aspects. You find that death can provide good statistics on health because of the gross disparities they reveal and also can be used for historical purposes.
You find that Who provides good data on death information and this data depends on two essentials which include the estimate of the populations at risk and the identifications of deaths even though there are problems with death data which include the following, changes in diagnostics and death certifications fashions, the generally low and declining use of post mortems and lastly the contribution of multiple sources to death, especially in ageing populations.
In categorizing countries, the World Bank categorizes countries according to their gross national product and by eight demographic regions based on their mortality strata, and this classification is much useful for analytical purposes. The United Nations uses the developed and less developed countries to categories these countries and is similar to the World Bank. (Kunitz, 1987).
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