Chapter 5 - Changes in Australia's health status Flashcards
Infectious disease
Can be transmitted from one person to another
Parasitic disease
Occur when parasites such as worms, skin mites, body lice and protozoa enter the body through contaminated food or water or from contact with others who have parasites on their skin or hair
Public health
The ways in which governments monitor, regulate and promote health and wellbeing and prevent illness.
- Providing safe water
- Sanitation and sewage disposal improved nutrition, improved housing conditions
- Better work conditions
Health promotion
The process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health.
Old public health
Government actions that focused on the changing the physical environment to prevent the spread of diseases
Old public health initiatives
- Clean drinking water was provided
- Sewage systems were established, and sanitation was improved
- Better quality housing and the elimination of housing slums
- Improved food and nutrition
- Improved working conditions
- Mass immunisation programs
‘Old’ public health initiatives
The shift to health promotion
Health promotion refers to the process of enabling people to increase control over and improve their healthy
Biomedical approach
Focuses on the physical or biological aspects of disease and illness a medical model practiced by doctors and health professionals and is associated with the diagnosis, treatment and cure of disease
Features of the biomedical approach
- focuses on individuals who are ill
- concerned with disease, illness and disability
- relies on services provided by doctors, specialists
- quick fix approach
- relies on technology to diagnose, treat and cure
Advantages of the biomedical approach to health
- Funding brings the improvements in technology and research
- It enables many illnesses and conditions to be effectively treated
- It extends life expectancy
- It improves quality of life and healthy adjusted life expectancy
Advantages of the biomedical approach to health - Funding brings the improvements in technology and research
Without the biomedical approach to health, there would be no X-rays antibiotics or anesthetics. there would also be relatively little knowledge about how to diagnose and treat illness
Advantages of the biomedical approach to health - It enables many illnesses and conditions to be effectively treated
Most people have had a range of medicines over the course of their lives. These are often taken for granted as they stop diseases or conditions that would otherwise develop and cause considerable ill health or death.
Advantages of the biomedical approach to health - It extends life expectancy
Many causes of death that were common in the past such as some infectious diseases can now be treated and cured, this increases life expectancy
Disadvantages of the biomedical approach to health
- It relies on professional health works and technology and is therefore costly
- It doesn’t always promote good health and wellbeing
- Not every condition can be treated
- It is not always affordable
Disadvantages of the biomedical approach to health - It relies on professional health works and technology and is therefore costly
because indivduals are the focus of this approach, people with specialised knowledge about disease and treatment
