Health culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Health culture - Essay Example Defined medically, health refers to the absence of disease and disease causing organisms or conditions in human body. From biomedical model, disease is temporary organic condition that is curable through medical intervention. In addition, biomedical model views disease as a condition of a sick person who must undergo treatment. Furthermore, biomedical model argues that treatment of a disease is only possible after symptoms appear, and the treatment must be within a medical environment. The sociological understanding of health and illness concerns with the study of the social factors that lead to unhealthy conditions. This focus on the social origins of illness and effects guides to the concept of health inequalities. Health inequality refers to the difference in health conditions due to variation in access to health care facilities experienced by a given group of population within a country or between countries. Society is the main determinant of health inequalities experienced by particular group of people. Society contains various life factors such as ethnicity, economic prosperity, cultural beliefs, educational background, political affiliations and law, which have particular effects on health inequalities experienced within various societies and communities (Smith, 2003 pg. 9). Social gradient is the collective name for the highlighted factors of life within various societies. Social gradient acts as the test instrument for understanding the level of exposure of a certain group of people to experience health inequality. This is to mean that groups or individuals exhibiting most favorable social conditions or circumstances like good income or good education background have better access to be tter health care services and facilities. The better the access to better health care factors the longer the life of a given group or individual (Graham, 2009 pg. 52). The general implication of health inequality is that the poorer a group