Health as a clinic-epidemiological concept.
I propose a clinic-epidemiological concept of health as the best description of what physicians actually think about health within medical practice. Its aim is to be an alternative to the best approach in the philosophy of medicine about health, Christopher Boorse's biostatistical theory. Contrary to Boorse's 'theoretical' approach, I propose to take health as a practical clinical concept. In the first two parts of the paper, I will present my complaints against Boorse's view that health is a theoretical concept, a 'species normal functional ability'. I will claim that Boorse's view is actually a view on normal physiology. My claim is that health is best described as the state of absence of chronic diseases or disabilities (clinic-epidemiologically associated with a morbimortality index higher than the risk of death, disease and disabilities for individuals of the same population group or reference class free of that chronic clinical conditions). Health, therefore, is not the mere absence of disease. Diseases that do not increase patients' morbimortality and disability indexes are not incompatible with health; after all, clinical health is compatible with appropriate health care and medical treatments.
Graduate Program in Philosophy, Unisinos, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
Marco Antonio
MA
Azevedo
D004194:Disease; D006262:Health; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D010686:Philosophy, Medical; D010827:Physiology
Boorse; biostatistical theory of health; clinic epidemiology; concept of disease; concept of health; medical ontology