title: [Reflections on the relation between education and disease].
abstract: The relation between education in the context of the socioeconomic construct and health has not yet been fully elucidated, despite numerous findings that have accumulated in about 150 years. Rather, the growing knowledge of the complex interaction of various domains, which are important for health, comes to the fore. Miscellaneous biological, social, medical, behavioural and environmental parameters play a role, whereas primary medicine may have a direct protective influence on almost all population-based indicators of health. The translation of these factors into individual reality is modulated by additional circumstances like the physician-patient relationship, influences that strongly frame the normal course of life such as working conditions, and the increasingly overburdening by an overflow of information as well as health care deficiencies. Education alone does not guarantee improved health; instead it is part of a widespread continuous contest with negative aspects of a global nature which increasingly limit the quality of life and the natural habitat.
authors.affiliation: Abteilung für Allgemeinmedizin, Universitätsklinikum Düsseldorf. richterb@uni-duesseldorf.de
authors.forename: Bernd
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Richter
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001293:Attitude to Death; D001294:Attitude to Health; D001519:Behavior; D004493:Education; D004777:Environment; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014481:United States