Health Concept Analysis Health From

Health CONCEPT ANALYSIS Health" From a Nurse Practitioner's Perspective Health The word "health" is, among other things, a concept that relates in most cases to the survival and physical condition of a living entity, in this case, the human body. This analysis will embrace and encompass the varied and diverse approaches to understanding and defining "health" as a concept. Health is a useful term, but it also becomes somewhat ubiquitous as it is attached to and applied to such a range of interpretations and usage (see thesaurus references below).

This paper will delve into the attributes, antecedents and consequences of health as we have come to understand it and be familiar with it in our language and our lives. This paper will also define and describe health as the term applies to the human condition, as it applies to the condition of other living things - including the health of Planet Earth, which is currently being harmed and suffering the consequences of severe climate change. 3. USES of the CONCEPT of HEALTH: Dictionary Definition: Oxford Universal Dictionary (Little, 1933) (p.

878): "Health (N). 1. Soundness of body; that condition in which its functions are duly discharged. 2. Hence, the general condition of the body; usually qualified as good, bad, delicate, etc. 1509. 3. Healing, cure - 1555. 4. Spiritual, moral, or mental soundness; salvation (arch.) OE. 5. Well-being, safety; deliverance - 1611. 6.

A wish expressed for a person's welfare; a toast drunk in a person's honor 1596." Dictionary Definition: Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary (http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/health):"Health (N) Etymology: Middle English helthe, from Old English h[AE]lth, from hAl; 1 a: the condition of being sound in body, mind, or spirit, especially: freedom from physical disease or pain; b: the general condition of the body 2 a: flourishing condition: WELL-BEING b: general condition or state 3 a: a toast to someone's health or prosperity." Dictionary Definition: Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary: (McKechnie, 1977) (p.

836) "Health (heith), n. [ME. Heith; as. Health, health, from hol, whole.] 1. Physical and mental well-being; soundness; freedom from defect, pain, or disease; normality of mental and physical functions. Health is something different from strength; it is universal good condition - Munger. 2. Condition of body or mind; as, good or bad health. 3. Power to heal, restore, or purify. [Rare.] the tongue of the wise is health, Prov. xii. 18. 4. A toast wishing health and happiness to another; as, to drink one's health. Come, love and health to all - Shakespeare.

Health officer; an officer whose duty it is to enforce sanitary rules and regulations." Dictionary Definition: The World Book Encyclopedia: (Field Enterprises 1959) (Volume 8) (p. 3332) "Health is a state of physical, mental, and emotional well-being, and not merely the absence of disease. It is the most precious possession that any person may have. When we are not in good health we cannot work or study well. The unhealthy person does not fully enjoy his recreation. He is not happy in his relationship with other people.

Millions of dollars are spent every year in the search for health... Just as a person who lacks good health is neither happy nor efficient, so a nation whose citizens are not healthy cannot be efficient and happy. Scientists believe that many great civilizations declined because the health of the people was injured by disease, lack of food, or bad living habits." Synonyms. Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus (Kipfer, 1992) (p.

399): "Health (n) physical, mental wellness; bloom, clean bill, complexion, constitution, energy, eupepsia, euphoria, fettle, fine feather, fitness, form, good condition, haleness, hardihood, hardness, healthfulness, healthiness, lustiness, pink, prime, robustness, salubriousness, salubrity, shape, soundness, stamina, state, strength, tone, tonicity, top form, verdure, vigor, well-being." Blood and Health: Current considerations of healthfulness: A healthy nation is one that adheres to healthful medical standards, which always centers on the availability of fresh supplies of blood.

Blood is one of the circulating fluids of the body that serves as nutrition, carrying oxygen, nutrients, and metabolic waste. The average adult has about five liters of blood that travels through the heart, arteries, veins, capillaries and cells. The plasma of the blood, according to Gray's Anatomy (pp. 1077-1078) has within it corpuscles, some of which are colored red.

There are about four to five million red corpuscles in the average person's blood, and about 12,000 red corpuscles "in each cubic millimeter of blood." In general, the red corpuscles carry oxygen and other nutrients and the white corpuscles fight disease. As a person gets older, and the size of his or her blood vessels change (usually shrinking), the red corpuscles "change their shape...as to adapt themselves to some extent to the size of the vessel," according to Gray's Anatomy.

That kind of human adaptation is an important part of keeping the body alive and healthy during the aging process - and during times of challenges to the health of the person - but in most cases the body cannot adapt to impure or tainted blood. Good health can be protected and/or restored: In order to fight disease (such as HIV, malaria and hepatitis) and treat patients, a clean blood supply is necessary.

In the United States, the blood supply "...is among the safest in the world," the Center for Disease Control (CDC) claims. Nearly all of those in the U.S. who have been infected with HIV as a result of contaminated blood used during blood transfusions were infected prior to 1985, CDC explains. The risk of infection with HIV in the U.S. By receiving a blood transfusion or blood products "is extremely low and has become progressively lower, even in geographic areas with high HIV prevalence rates," according to the CDC.

In addition to fears of HIV, there is also the worry of a person getting hepatitis through contaminated blood; but the National Institutes of Health (NIH) assert that "today, thanks to improvements in screening donors and their blood, the rate of transfusion-associated hepatitis at NIH has dropped to virtually nothing" (McManus 2000).

The NIH states that 1 in 300 Americans carries the HIV virus; but, "Chillingly, 90% of the recipients of HIV-contaminated blood later become infected"; that makes it all the more important to assure that the blood given to patients is indeed safe and free from disease.

Today, according to the NIH article called "Blood Supply Largely Safe, but More Needed" by writer Rich McManus, because better screen procedures have been put into place, "the risk is approaching 1 in 1 million, or about the same as being struck by lightning," in terms of the possibility of getting HIV through a blood transfusion. And the NIH also claims that the chances of getting malaria through impure blood in the U.S. is 1 in 4 million; "only 103 cases were reported in the period 1958-1998," McManus asserts.

The attention paid to the possibility of a person getting malaria is crucial, because that disease is "by far the most important transfusion-transmitted illness on a world-wide basis," McManus writes. And the malaria parasite can remain in the blood for "around 40 years." 4. DETERMINE DEFINING ATTRIBUTES: An inherent attribute of "health" is "healthy" and when one thinks of a child being "healthy" the concept of "mother" comes into focus. People generally attribute a mother's presence as required for healthy children.

Moreover, our Earth has the attribute concept of a "Mother Earth"; indeed, traditionally poets, teachers, conservationists and writers (among many others) have made the point that the Earth is like our mother and will protect us and keep us in good health. When we were young and had a cold or fever our mother took care of our health. But lately "Mother Earth" herself is showing signs of having a fever.

Global warming, although still somewhat controversial in conservative media like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, among alert, objective and informed citizens of the current quality of the planet's ecosystems, Earth's good health is at risk. Never in the history of humans has so much attention been paid to the health of the planet, and it has come to this because humans have abused the Earth.

The very latest report from the scientific community about the fever that Earth is suffering from - global warming - comes from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations-sponsored network of 2,000 scientists from all over the world who have been studying the Earth's environment since 1988. The IPCC issued its latest findings - the second of a series of four climate change reports - from Brussels, Belgium, early in April, 2007 - and this report received a tremendous amount of attention in the media.

The reason why this report received so much attention is that it is predicting that because of ongoing man-made conditions, global warming has now reached a point where there is not stopping it, and the harmful effects of global warming are already in evidence in numerous ways and many places on Earth. According to the U.S.A.

Today (Borenstein, 2007), the latest IPCC report states that within twenty years "hundreds of millions of people won't have enough water." And while safe drinking water may not be available to those millions of people, tens of millions of others will be "flooded out of their homes each year" as rising temperatures cause polar ice caps to melt. "Tropical diseases like malaria will spread" and in another forty years or so polar bears will only be seen in zoos, as their habitats (ice floes) will have disappeared.

Initially, food will be in good supply because of longer growing seasons in the northern regions of the world, but in time, starvation will become a reality for "hundreds of millions" of people, as the land on which crops are grown will be drought-stricken.

Presently, changes in climate are having an affect on "physical and biological systems on every continent." And those changes are happening "faster than we expected" according to Patricia Romero Lankao of the national Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, a co-author of the report who was quoted in the U.S.A. Today article.

Indeed the present conditions are bad, and some of the health-related problems caused by man-made global warming (and included in the IPCC report) include "...more acidified oceans, loss of wetlands, bleaching of coral reefs, and increases in allergy-inducing pollen" along with dramatic changes in species' habits and habitats." The health of species is a reflection of the good or bad health of the planet. Another of the hundreds of co-authors, Terry Root of Stanford University, was quoted in the U.S.A.

Today article as saying, "We truly are standing at the edge of mass extinction" of species. Smog in U.S. cities will get worse, the IPCC information asserts, and "ozone-related deaths from climate (will) increase by approximately 4.5%" by the middle of the 2050s.

The IPCC issued its first climate change report in 1990, a report which "outlined risks of warming" and had a role in motivating many UN governments to agree to a 1992 UN "climate convention"; at that convention a "non-binding goal of stabilizing greenhouse gasses at 1990 levels by 2000" was established, according to Reuters (April 10, 2007), but was not met.

The IPCC released another report in 1995, which stated: "The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate." As a result of this report, a 1997 international agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions - called the Kyoto Protocol - was signed by 35 industrial nations (not including the United States). The Kyoto Protocol called for those 35 nations to cut greenhouse gases to "5% below 1990 levels by 2008-12," Reuters reports. The IPCC issued another report in 2001, stating that, "new and stronger evidence" linked "human activities to rising temperatures" (Reuters, 2007).

A working definition of the health attributes - an object closely associated with or belonging to a specific thing - of the planet we live on is "Mother Earth" which depicts a nurturing, healthy place for all living things. As mentioned in the material above, the health of the planet is in great jeopardy. 5. CONSTRUCT a MODEL CASE: The World Health Organization (WHO) (www.who.int/child-adolescent-health/right.htm) has a section in its Web site called the Department of Child and Adolescent Health and Development (CAH).

Imagine if every nation on Planet Earth had the same goals as the WHO when it came to the health of children. This is a model case that may seem idealistic, but when enough people support a good idea, that idea can become reality.

Meantime, the WHO offers a "firm conviction" that all children and all adolescents "...should have the means and the opportunity to develop to their full potential." The model case in this instance would be that all countries - democratic nations or ruled by autocratic dictators - would adopt a working strategy that, like the WHO, would offer assurance of "life, survival, maximum development, access to health and access to health services..." To all children.

The United Nations has a "Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)"; and among those rights, which the WHO supports, are the right to education, the right to health and health services, and the right to an "...adequate standard of living." Also, the CRC model for all nations should include the "principle of non-discrimination" and that all political decisions should be made "...in the best interests of the child." Article 6 of the CRC establishes the "right to life, survival and development," while Article 12 embraces "respect for the views of the child." The WHO / CRC model is partly based on the need to keep children healthy.

One does not need to go far to find terribly bad health news about children, and hence the overwhelming and urgent need for a model that nations can follow. For example, the WHO points out that four million children under the age of 15 have become infected with the HIV virus since the epidemic started several years ago. The HIV progresses "quickly to AIDS in children," the WHO site explains.

And "an estimated 10.3 million young people aged 15-24 are currently living with HIV / AIDS, and half of all new infections - over 7,000 daily - are occurring among young people," the WHO points out. What better evidence should the world's nations need - when it comes to enacting a model that protects children's health - than the terrible toll that disease takes on children? 6. BORDERLINE, CONTRARY...ILLEGITIMATE CASES: The World Book Encyclopedia: (Field Enterprises 1959) (Volume 8) (p. 3335).

"Health Protection: [photograph of a man spraying a cloud of insecticide / DDT into a river] Government Agent spraying a River to kill mosquitoes and their eggs. Malaria, yellow fever, and other diseases are carried by infected mosquitoes. Draining swamps and effective spraying have reduced disease rates in many cities." This encyclopedia of course is circa 1950s, when it was believed that DDT was the answer to the mosquito problem.

However, what is known today about DDT clearly leads an objective observer to believe that the government was ignorant about the unhealthful nature of this pesticide. However, according to Stanford University the widespread use of DDT resulted in a very unhealthy environment for birds. The chemical DDT got into the food chain and caused the thinning of eggshells.

"DDT...alter[s] the bird's calcium metabolism in a way that results in think eggshells...[resulting] in the decimation of the Brown Pelican populations in much of North America and the extermination of the Peregrine Falcon in the eastern United States and southeastern Canada." The thin shells of Golden and Bald Eagles, and White Pelicans, were also weakened by the chemicals of DDT, until the pesticide was banned, and now these bird species are coming back into good health.

Another illegitimate case where "health" as a concept is abused is found in contemporary political reporting. Isn't it a good idea for a nation to try to secure a healthy situation for its children? That seems obvious, but politics can change logic into confusion, in many instances, and healthcare is no exception to that general rule. A story in the Los Angeles Times (Alonso-Zaldivar 2007) ("Bush ready to veto children's healthcare bill") indicates that, President Bush will likely veto healthcare legislation approved by the Congress.

The bill is called "State Children's Health Insurance Program" and while it will cost about $35 billion over the next five years, Congress wants to fund the program by raising the tax on cigarettes (an unhealthy habit that is the possible source of revenue for many healthcare solutions).

Bush will veto the bill he says because it will "...lay the groundwork for government-run national healthcare." But all of the candidates for president from the Democrat party are in support of national healthcare anyway, so this is not any radical departure from the national debate on healthcare. But meantime, the bill is intended not just to help poor families provide health insurance coverage for their kids, but it would help some middle-class families who now face annual medical insurance rates of around $12,000.

When middle class or low-income families face health crises with their children, the burden falls on "society as a whole," writes Alonso-Zaldivar in the Times; so in the end, it may be prudent for the federal government to provide healthcare coverage for those above-mentioned families. Still, the very idea of a president vetoing legislation that would provide health coverage for approximately 10 million children seems rather unbelievable, but politics can make a good thing - when it comes to health - go bad in a hurry.

Hence, this section on illegitimate health concepts includes petty reactions from politicians that stand in the way of giving a child a decent chance for a healthy future. 7. IDENTIFY ANTECEDENTS and CONSQUENCES of HEALTH: An antecedent - "something that is responsible for a result" according to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary - for poor human health is based on what we eat and under what conditions we prepare food for others to eat. The consequences of eating unhealthy food can be (and often is) food-borne illnesses.

The fast food industry is guilty of getting people hooked on very fatty unhealthy foods, but also the fast food industry has had some serious health code problems. In fact, according to investigative reporting by MSNBC, which hired the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) for a survey of fast food restaurants, "critical violations" of health codes were found at more than 60% of a sample of 1,000 restaurants.

The report, published in 2006 on the Web site: http://www.msnbc.msn.com, was based on investigations of 100 each of the top ten fast food restaurant chains. On the subject of low worker motivation and bad worker morale, the research discovered that the reason behind 100 people becoming violently ill at a McDonald's in Erwin, Tennessee, was due to a sick trick on the part of employees.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) was brought in to investigate after customers were taken to the hospital with dehydration problems - some were even hallucinating, according to the investigation. The employees had apparently contaminated the food (deliberately) with a virus. Meanwhile, the CSPI found that Taco Bell had the fewest "critical violations" (a critical violation is something that happens in a restaurant that can cause the food to become contaminated).

The 100 McDonald's that were inspected had 136 critical violations; some of the McDonald's didn't have a "trained and certified food handler on the job," which is required by law in most states, CSPI reported. As for the 100 Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants that were investigated, they had 157 critical violations; recently, two children who ate at KFC's got salmonella poisoning.

One wonders what kind of motivated workers KFC restaurants have if there so many serious violations of health codes; maybe the workers are motivated to show up for work and waltz through their shift, and motivated to get out of there as fast as they can? Other fast food places - 100 of each brand were inspected and local health department officials were contacted in each case - and their critical violations are as follows: Subway (160); Jack in the Box (164); Dairy Queen (184); Hardees (206); Wendy's (206); Arby's (210); and Burger King (241).

The 100 Burger King stores had the most of any of the 10 companies that were part of the investigation. What were Burger King's employees doing - or not doing - do wrack up such a poor record? The Center for Science in the Public Interest reported that a Burger King in Virginia had 14 separate critical violations, according to Health Department records; those included employees failing to wash their hands, food not covered in the refrigerator, "grime and debris found" in the ice chute and the drink machine.

One Burger King employee was scooping ice into a cup "with his bare hands." 8. EMPIRICAL REFERENTS: The first empirical referent is data on unhealthful food. This paper has discussed health code violations at fast food restaurants, where millions of Americans eat daily, and are at risk of getting fat or ill.

But what about those who actually eat at McDonald's and Burger King and Taco Bell and Wendy's? What about their health? The International Journal of Obesity (French, 2001) conducted an empirical study of fast foot restaurant use among adolescents, and their findings are very interesting, as well as pertinent. The institution that conducted the research was the Division of Epidemiology at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota. The team of scholars and researchers sampled 4,746 adolescent students from classrooms at 31 secondary schools.

The height and body weight were measured of the students (from grades 7 through 12), and parental permission was granted in each case. What was measured by the researchers was the "frequency of fast food restaurant use" (FFFRU), the "dietary intake," and also the "demographic and behavioral measures" each of the 4,746 students observed. Those data were "self-reported" by the students. Also, the dietary intake was assessed using a "semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire," and height and weight were measured directly by the researchers.

The results showed that FFFRU was "positively associated with intake of total energy, percent energy from fat, daily servings of soft drinks, cheeseburgers, French fries and pizza." Meanwhile, the FFFRU was "inversely associated" with daily servings of vegetables, fruit, and milk.

The FFFRU, according to the findings, was "positively associated" with employment by students (many of whom worked in the fast food industry), television watching, "home availability of unhealthy foods," and with "perceived barriers to healthy eating." The FFFRU was "inversely associated" with peer concerns about healthy eating, along with students' own perception of good health. The conclusion; FFFRU was directly linked to fat intake, and "it is plausible" the study report indicates, that..

[There are] significant associations between fast food restaurant use and weight gain or obesity." It is also believed, according to the research, that television advertising for fast food "could promote greater fast food consumption among adolescents." second empirical referent that is highly pertinent to this research is the shortage of nurses in America, and the problems that will present to the population.

It goes without saying that health and nurse are almost synonymous; when a patient in a hospital needs attention, it's a nurse that responds; and when visiting a medical clinic, before seeing the doctor - or in lieu of seeing a doctor - the individual in need of care puts his or her situation into the hands of a nurse.

A scholarly article by Jeremye Cohen (Cohen, 2006) is very relevant in social and economic terms, since hospitals and other healthcare facilities are not going to be able to operate at full strength if they begin losing nurses to retirement - and cannot recruit sufficient replacements. The author sites the following empirically validated statistics - using the U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) data - relative to the age issue in the nursing field: in the year 2002, the average age of an RN in America was 42.1 years; that number is expected to rise to 45.4 years by 2010. That may not sound.