Health As A Continuum of Ill Health & Well Being

Health As A Continuum Of Ill Health And Well Being
James Achanyi-Fontem, Cameroon Link
The professional services diector of Brent Sickle Cell and Thalassaaemia Centre, Dr. Lola Oni OBE, on November 28, 2008 emphasized on the relationship between well-being and ill-health for the achievement of a state of complete physical,mental and social well-being. She added that the of disease or infirmity may not necessary mean that we are healthy.
She was addressing managers of the Fine Forest Foundation, FFF, Cameroon who were on a Commonwealth Professional Fellowship training at the Sickle Cell society UK under the 2008 scheme. Dr. Lola examined the check list of issues to look at when designing and executing projects in Cameroon. with the trainees during an interactive session.
Looking at Health Promotion, the participants reflected on what health is all about, what being healthy means, factors that influence health, who has control over the ability to be healthy, how to achieve optimum health and what hinders a person from being healthy. With this, Dr. Lola said, health is a continuum between ill health and well being.. The elements of health, she said, were physical, mental and social.
She quoted Tournier (1954) as saying that “Every illness calls for two diagnosis: one scientific (casual) and the other spiritual which is a diagnosis of its meaning and purpose.” Watson (1989) on his part believes that health refers to unity and harmony of body mind and spirit. This harmony should allow moe sel knowledge, self control, and self healing regardless of the health condition.
During a department of health conference in 1998, Wang observed that the health status of second generation migrant is often worse than that of their first generation parents. In attempt to gain acceptance and be seen as ‘non-foreign by their peers, many British born children and grandchildren of migrants discard many of their parents cultural values and practices and adopted western ones. Sadly their health behaviours and health patterns suggest that they tend to discard good practices.
According to the World Health Organisation (1989), health promotion is a concept where people and communities are enabled to define their own health needs. Being empowered to bring about social change that will improve their health status.
To achieve adequate health promotion action must be in two phases, notably the management of diseases and disease prevention. Under disease management, there should be curative services, management services and caring services, while the prevention of disease should involve prevention services, medical services and behaviour change.
Good examples of health promotion activities are immunisation programmes, cervical screening, water fluoridation, Sickle Cell Screening, Infant and Young Child Nutrition Promotion, banning of smoking in public places, awareness campaigns and maternal assessment of postnatal depression just to name a few.
Health promotion is gaining a lot ocncern due to the influences that surround it. These are often individual, biological or social, nuclear families where we have parents who smoke, the extended family that keep health care cost high, friends who influence others into bad habits and behaviour, community when we take a look at what the churches say on certain health issues,, schools and workplaces and public institutions. All thsse groups influence the development of health and we cannot succeed without associating them in one way or the other through social mobilisation, information and education.
Downie et al (1996-28) defines health education as a communication activity aimed at enhancing positive health and preventing or diminishing ill-health in individuals and groups, through influencing the beliefs, attitudes and behaviour of those with power and of the community at large.
Activities that fall within the frame work of education include community empowerment, critical consciousness raising, advocacy and lobbying for legislation on pertinent health issues, promotion of a health and social environment, promoting informed health choices, involving non governmental and civil society organisations in health promotion, educating staff, creating more health services and above all setting agenda.
Health promotion strategies can be handled at individual or collective levels through authoritative modes of intervention or negotiation mode of intervention. The strategy for individuals is generally through persuasion and personal counseling, while collectively, this is appropriate through legislation and community development.
To attain positive results, the needs assessments must be done for adaptation to environment, and examination of coping mechanisms, recognition of needs, construction of strategies, review and modification of strategies regularly and the development of new strategies.