What is it about?
The current definition of health, formulated by the WHO, is no longer adequate for dealing with the new challenges in health care systems, at least for 6 reasons. The time has come to abandon the WHO’s utopian vision: we can no longer consider health as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being. This definition should be seen as an inspirational goal rather than a real definition of health. A new definition of health should have at least 9 features to work well within the clinical scientif- ic field. Moving from these 9 recommendations, a new definition of health has been developed.
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Why is it important?
The 6 problematic aspects regarding the WHO definition of health have been deeply analysed. At the beginning of the third millenium, a definition of health should have specific features, which have been discussed. A new definition of health has been proposed in order to deal with the new challenges of Medicine.
Perspectives
A new definition of health is need, but the wide scientific debate regarding definition of health seems to have come to a standstill: on one hand, the WHO does not change its own definition; and on the other, no alternative perspective seems able to reach a wide level of consensus. This work gives some theoretical coordinates to overcome from this standstill.
Fabio Leonardi
T.I.B. - Clinical and Research Centre
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This page is a summary of: The Definition of Health: Towards New Perspectives, International Journal of Health Services, June 2018, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0020731418782653.
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