The document discusses the types, functions, and role of families in health and disease. It defines the family and describes different types of families including nuclear, joint, and three-generation. The key functions of the family are providing residence, dividing labor, reproduction/child rearing, socialization, and economic support. Regarding health, families play important roles in child rearing, socialization, caring for dependents, personality formation, disease susceptibility, and providing stability. Problem families can negatively impact children's development and health behaviors. Overall, the family is the primary social unit that influences health.

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The Family
(Types, Function and Role of Family in
Health and Disease)
By
Dr. Utpal Sharma
Assistant Professor
Department of Community Medicine, SMIMS

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Introduction
 The family is primary unit of all society
 ‘Family’ is derived from the Roman word ‘famulus’ which
means ‘servant’
Defination
 Family is a group of persons united by the ties of marriage,
blood or adoption and living together & eating from a
common kitchen.
 The term household is different from family
Different aspect of family
 As a biological unit ---- share a pool of genes
 As a social units ---- common physical and social environment
 As cultural unit ---- it reflects the culture of the wider society
 It is also an epidemiological unit ---- for providing social
services and medical care

3. Family life cycle
 Families are not a constant
 They are ever changing
 Having six phase
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4. Types of family
 On the basis of structure: Nuclear, Joint & 3-
generation
 On the basis of authority: Patriarchal & Matriarchal
 On the basis of residence: Patrilocal & Matrilocal
 On the basis of marriage:Monogamous, polygamous
& polyandrous
 On the basis of ancestry: Matrilineal & patrilineal
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Types of Family
Three generation family
Joint Family
Nuclear family

6. Nuclear family
 Also known as “Elementary family”
 Universal in all human societies
Definition
 It consists of a married couple and their children when
they are still regarded as dependent
 They tend to occupy the same dwelling place
 The husband usually plays the dominant role in the
household
 Absence of relatives like grand parents, uncles, aunts
and other.
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Cont…
 There is a greater burden on nuclear family in
terms of responsibilities for rearing children
 The husband – wife relationship is likely to be
more intimate
New families
 This term is used for the nuclear families less
than 10 years old
 The concept is important in view of studies
relating to family planning

8. Joint family
 Also called “Extended family”
 It is kind of family grouping very common India, Africa,
Far East and Middle East
 More common in agriculture areas ( rural areas)
 Now a days there are losing of joint family
Definition
 It consist of numbers of married couples and their
children who live together in the same house hold
 All the man are related by blood and the women of the
household are their wives, unmarried girls and widows of
the family kinsmen
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Cont….
Characteristics of a joint family
 All the property is held in common
 There is common family purse --- all income goes and
expenditures met
 All the authority is vested in senior male member of
family
 He is most dominant member and control all internal and
external affairs of family
 The familial relations are enjoy primacy over marital
relations
 Early and arranged marriage is advocated to ward off
any threat from marital relationship

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Cont…
Advantages/ merits of joint
family
 It is based on the motto “Union is
Strength”
 There is sharing of responsibility
 It gives family greater income and social
security
 It provide economic and social security to
the old, unemployed
 Pooling of income makes rearing of
children, arranging marriages, caring for
the old easy job

11. Three generation
family
 It is fairly common in west
 There are representative of three generations in the
same family
Definition
 It occurs usually when young couples are unable to
find separate accommodation and continue to live with
their parents and have their own children
 They are related to each other by direct descent live
together
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Functions of Family
Residence
 To provide clean and descent home to its member
 In west when men marries he separate with his parents and sets up
his own home
 In India (Hindus) married couple should resides in the house of the
parent
 Two types of residency:
 Patrilocal residency
 Matrilocal residency
Division of labour
 The male had the sloe duty to earn a living and support the family
 The female had total responsibility for day to day care of children
and running of household

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Cont…..
 Now a days there are less difference between function of
men and women ---- the coming together and sharing
responsibility
Reproduction and bringing up of children
 This is very important function
 The mother take absolute care of infant and children
during certain age
 The father provides for education and teaches the social
tradition and customs
Socialization:
 The family is bridge between generations and between
father and son
 The cultural pattern relating to eating, cleanliness, dress,
speech, language, behavior and attitude transmitted
through the family

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Cont…
Economic function:
 The family hold the properties and ownership like farms,
shop, dwelling are handed down to the children
Social care:
 The family provides social care by….
 Giving status in society
 Protecting its member from insult
 Regulating marital activities of its members
 Regulating to a certain extent political, religion and general
social activities
 Regulating sex relations through incest-taboos

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Role of family in health and disease
 The family is ultimately the unit with which one has to
deal if concerned with medicine or public health
 There are certain function which are related with health
and health behavior
Child rearing:
 One of the important function
 Physical care of dependent young ---- survive to
adulthood
 The child rearing may differ from society to society and
from time to time
 It is important to note the pattern of child care (feeding,
nutrition, hygiene, sleep, clothing, habit training)
 Passing from one generation to another

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Cont…
Socialization
 It refer to process by whereby individuals develop
qualities essential for functioning effectively in the
society……it is a latent function
 Teaching the young, the values of the society and
transmitting information, culture, belief, conducts by
citing examples
 Introduction of young in to adult society
 In some societies the young are given freedom to
develop into individuals ---- to take initiative
Personality formation
 The capacity of individual to withstand stress and strain
 The way he interact with other people
 Family acts as the “placenta” to filter off ill influences

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Cont…
Care of dependent adults:
 Care of sick and injured:
 So adult become dependent either through injury, illness
or because of biological limitation
 In some society there is great deal of harshness in
respect to those who are sufferer
 Some times individual are excluded from full range of
benefits
 The kind of illness is important ---- attitude of society
 The family acts like the cushion and gives the front-line
care for such individuals

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Cont….
 Care of women during Pregnancy
 In term of financial help, maternity leave, diet and
nutrition supplement and decrease workload to the
women
Stabilization of adult personality:
 The family is like “shock absorber” --- stress and strain of
life
 The stress could be injury, illness, birth, death, tension,
worry, anxiety etc
 The family provide opportunity to release tension -----
individual --- mental equilibrium
 Alcoholics and narcotics are reflection of this trend
 Stress disease --- peptic ulcer, colitis, high B.P.

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Cont…
Familial susceptibility to disease:
 The member of family share a pool of genes, common
environment ---- decide their susceptibility of disease
 Certain disease such as haemophilia, colour blindness, D.M.,
mental illness known to run through families
 Could be a playground for communicable disease viz. TB,
measles etc
Broken family
 Where the parents are separated or where death of one or
both parents
 Importantly, the victims of the broken family in younger years
were found to be displaying psychopathic behavior, immature
personality etc.
 They may drift to anti social activities like prostitution,
gambling, crime and vagrancy

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Cont….
Problem family:
 Those families who lag behind the rest of the community
 The standard of the life are far below the accepted minimum
and parents are unable to meet physical and emotional need of
their children
 The underlying factors are backwardness, poverty, illness,
mental and emotional instability, character defects and marital
disharmony
 The problem families found in all social class but more
common in LSEC
 The children reared in such environment ----- crime, prostitution
and vagrancy
“The secret of national health lies in the
homes of the people”

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