How should health be defined?

doi:10.1136/bmj.a2900

Published 10 December 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a2900
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a2900

Editorials

How should health be defined?

Join a global conversation at http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2008/12/10/alex-jadad-on-defining-health/

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

On 7 April 1948, the member states of the United Nations ratifiedthe creation of the World Health Organization. It was set upwith the fundamental objective of "the attainment by all peoplesof the highest possible level of health." This lofty goal wascoupled with an equally ambitious opening statement that definedhealth as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-beingand not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."¹

This definition invited nations to expand the conceptual frameworkof their health systems beyond the traditional boundaries setby the physical condition of individuals and their diseases,and it forced us to pay attention to what we now call socialdeterminants of health. Consequently, WHO challenged political,academic, community, and professional organisations devotedto improving or preserving health to make the scope of theirwork explicit, including their rationale for allocating resources.This opened the door for . . . [Full text of this article]

Alejandro R Jadad, professor , Laura O’Grady, postdoctoral fellow

¹ Centre for Global eHealth Innovation; Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation; Dalla Lana School of Public Health; Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto; and University Health Network, Toronto, Canada M5G 2C4

ajadad@ehealthinnovation.org

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