The World Health: Hat Is Health?

hat Is Health?
Health is a word that has many different definitions and many ideas of what it truly means. The World Health Organization defines health as "... a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (Philosophy 335: Biomedical Ethics—Study Guide). Just as the World Health Organization has given their idea of what health is defined as so has every person in the world. I define health very similar to the World Health Organization, that it is not just a physical state, but a mental, spiritual and even nutritional state. Health overall, cannot be combined into one category as there are many different avenues of health. Physical health, I believe, is the health of your physical

Not only is it the individuals lifestyle that contributes to their overall health, but it is also things such as their environment that they live and the circumstances they live in (World Health Organization).These are called determinants. When discussing environment pertaining to health, we must take into consideration that this also means the social, economic, physical environment. As stated by Levins and Lopez, “Genes may influence how we relate to our environments, while society can determine the environments that we face..” (p. 270) indiciating that it is not only one factor that determines our health, but many. At a York University Conference held in Toronto in 2002, 14 different social determinants of health were using ranging from Aboriginal status to unemployment, to food insecurity (Mikkonen, Raphael, 2010). There are also factors such as income and social factors, education, genetics, social support networks, health services and even gender that are determinants of health. Something we individuals need to remember is that we cannot blame people for having bad health when some of the determining factors are completely out of their control. I feel that a person 's physical environment are one of the most important determinants of health due to the damage it can do to one if they have a poor environment surrounding them. Where an individual is born and raised is not a choice that people get to

The micro-allocation of resources is concerned with selecting which individuals are to receive scarce or insufficient health care resources (Fortes 266). Now there are many viewpoints that microallocation can take on - there is utilitarian, bare Kantian, fair Kantian, and also a mix of a little bit of everything. Being asked when taking into consideration microallocation, what would I classify myself as one of the above, it was a hard question to answer. A utilitarian evaluates actions according to their consequences and generally speaking, their actions are ethically correct when they aim to promote well-being, pleasure or enjoyment for the majority. Their aim is the maximization of welfare. (Fortes 267). For example, there is a list of individuals waiting for an organ transplant - a utilitarian person would base their criteria on who would receive that donor transplant before another based on determinants such as age, life expectancy and so on. Fortes has a perfect example of this when a list of people have been told to choose between a seven-year-old child and an 18-month-old baby. The individuals who chose the seven-year-old to have the transplant versus the 18th-month-old were stated to be utilitarian because they followed the belief of doing no harm. These people believed that the 18-month-old toddler will not understand the pain and effect of what was