basic concepts of health and disease

1. Rajkumari Lodhi
Assistant Professor
Department of Pharmacology
Bhopal Madhya Pradesh
Concept of Health and Disease
Subject:- Social and preventive pharmacy
Semester:- 8th

2. Concept of Health and Disease
Definition:
Health-
“Health is defined as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not
merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. (WHO)
Disease-
The disease is just the opposite of health. Any deviation from normal functioning or state of
complete physical and mental well-being.
Concept of health
There are some major concepts of health…
1. Biomedical concept
2. Ecological concept

3. 1. Biomedical concept- This concept is based on the germ theory of disease, proposed
by Robert Koch.
The postulates of the germ theory of disease state that-
•Microorganisms are responsible for the disease.
•These microorganisms can be isolated from the diseased host and can be purely cultured
in the laboratory
•The isolated organisms in pure culture when injected into healthy susceptible host can
produce the same disease
•The microorganisms can be isolated from the experimental host, both in smear and
culture.
2. Ecological concept- This concept states about equilibrium between host (Human),
infectious agents, and the environment they share. So, health is a dynamic equilibrium
between human and their environment.

4. Classification of disease
Diseases can be classified into the following 6 groups
1.Disease of biological origin: Diseases causing organisms such as bacteria, viruses,
parasites, protozoans, and worms. Diseases caused by such organisms are commonly
known as infectious diseases or communicable diseases. For example, cholera is
caused by Vibrio cholerae.
2. Social diseases: these diseases are commonly known as human-induced diseases
because the diseases are introduced by the activities of either individuals or society.
Social lifestyle, as well as the modern societies, are particularly associated with diseases
such as alcoholism, drug abuse, coronary heart disease, lung cancer, accidents, pollution-
related respiratory diseases, etc.

5. 3. Deficiency disease: diseases caused due to absence of certain nutrients in the
diet. The absence of protein in diet causes kwashiorkor and marasmus. Similarly
absence of vit. B1, vit. C and vit.D cause scurvy and rickettsia respectively.
Other examples of such deficiency diseases are goiter,
4. Genetic and congenital diseases: the diseases that are present before birth is
known as congenital diseases. Most of the genetic disorders or diseases are
congenital. Examples. color blindness, hemophilia, etc

6. 5. Degenerative diseases and aging: degeneration of body tissue can also cause
diseases. As people aged, many tissue degenerate and lost their function partly or
completely, resulting in disorder, for eg. Long-sightedness in old is due to the
weakening of eye muscles. Other examples are- arthritis etc
6. Mental disorder: it includes a large group of diseases from anxiety and depression
to schizophrenia and madness.

7. 1. Infectious or communicable diseases:
These diseases are caused by pathogenic organisms and are transmitted from one organisms
to another directly or indirectly. So these diseases are also known as communicable or
transmissible diseases. Pathogenic microorganisms may be transmitted by food, water,
(droplet) or bite of certain arthropods or other animals. They may also be transmitted by
direct contact or by sharing contaminated objects with infected person.

8. On the basis of mode of transmission, infectious diseases are sub-grouped into
following
•Water borne disease: cholera, typhoid
•Food borne disease: food poisoning,
•Air borne disease: TB
•Diseases transmitted by direct contact: AIDS
•Arthropod born disease: malaria,
•Zoonotic disease: rabies
2. Non Infectious or Noncommunicable disease:
Social diseases, deficiency diseases, degenerative diseases, genetic or congenital
diseases and mental diseases are non-transmissible as no infectious agents are involved
rather various factors are responsible for the occurrence of diseases.

9. THANK YOU