The Meaning of Health in an Inner City Community

Abstract

In spite of the increasing numbers of articles defining, analyzing and explaining the concept of health, there is little agreement among professionals as to what health actually is (Payne, 1983; Smith, 1983; Van der Geest, 1985; Winstead-Fry, 1980). This gap is becoming increasingly awkward with the World Health Organization's new goal of "health for all by the year 2000." The question is, if we do not know or cannot agree what health is and if health cannot be operationalized, then how can "health for all" be attained? This vagueness is disconcerting when health professionals are given the task of promoting and maintaining health, as well as caring for the sick. It is clear from the literature that lay persons (i.e., consumers of health care) also have divergent notions of what health is and that these perceptions of health frequently differ from the health care providers' definitions (Baumann, 1961; Maddox, 1962; Shaver, 1985; Smith, 1983; Tessler & Mechanic, 1978; Tripp-Reimer, 1984). It is also apparent that health care providers ethnocentrically assume that they are the "experts", and it is their responsibility, and privilege, to inform the consumers on matters pertaining to their state of health. After reviewing published definitions of health, Keller (1981) concluded her article with this assumption: