The Origins of Health: Community or Individual Responsibility

The Origins of Good or Poor Health
Name
Institution
Abstract
According to WHO, health is defined as a state of well-being pertaining three aspects; that is, physical, mental, and social soundness. Put as such, scholars and policymakers have argued that health is above and beyond a state of absence of disease or infirmity. Therefore, health encompasses an interplay of both individual and community perspectives hence creating a discourse in understanding the origins of good or poor health. Furthermore, researchers have identified that there exists a correlation between individual and community health which can provide a lead in understanding health and its determinants. This essay analyzes the US healthcare system with a focus on the dominating ‘mother tongue’ in the contemporary American society. As will be discussed below, unlike other industrialized countries’ healthcare system, the US healthcare system is unique from in the sense that it lacks a universal healthcare system and a centralized insurance plan for its citizens. Moreover, statistics have shown that most health care procedures, although financed by public resources, are delivered to the common citizen privately.

Key Words: health, origins of health, healthcare system, individual perspective, community perspective.
Introduction
According to WHO, health is generally defined as a state of well-being pertaining three aspects; that is, physical, mental, and social soundness. From a precise biomedical point of view, health can be defined as having a normal physiologic and anatomic composition hence the absence of any negative biological circumstances such as disease or disability.

Defined as such, most scholars have developed concern in the question ‘Who is responsible for health? Community or Individual? In the US, most Americans have developed a health culture that focuses more on individual health than the community initiatives and policies to improve health outcomes. Therefore, as will be discussed below, the health culture in today’s contemporary American society is inclined more on the individual responsibility perspective of the origin of health rather than community responsibility perspective.
Analysis
In the American society today, individualism has taken over as the ‘mother tongue’ in many fields, be it politics or even health. The US healthcare system is different from that of other developed countries such as Switzerland and Canada. Unlike the Swiss healthcare which runs a centralized national health service alongside a multi-payer insurance health insurance, the US healthcare system is characterized as a hybrid system. According to 2017 statistics of health expenditure, 49.8% of the gross healthcare expenditure was accounted by the private sector. In that share, 29% was expenditure from the households and 20.8% was expenditure on health by private businesses.
Further, the statistics revealed that federal government had a 30.9% expenditure on health while the state governments accounted for 23%. A further review of the health statistics indicates that about 87% of the total US population runs some health insurance coverage. In that share, 65% of employed Americans are covered by private health insurance in their workplace. These pair of facts is an indicator of the height of individualism which has been attributed to causing the prohibitively high cost of healthcare in America. The fact that the healthcare system in America is privatized has resulted in poor health for below-average citizens. In any society, health should be a basic need that is provided to all without discrimination. However, this is not the case in the US society.
In the US society health is viewed more of individual responsibility than community responsibility. Critics of the US healthcare system have directed blame on the policymakers who view health as a biomedical construct hence hindering the progress of measures that produce heath and identifying the causes of diseases. Moreover, experts point out that the US healthcare system is inclined to treatment procedures rather than preventive care; as such the government has invested heavily in technology and health administration hence the rising inflation of healthcare costs. As a result, this system breeds individualism and leaves the cost of healthcare and responsibility for good or poor health solely on the individual (Aday, 2002). Aside from that, the US healthcare system is less inclined to the community initiatives for better health; that is, there is heavy investment in technologically advanced hospitals and specialized medical personnel but less focus on community responsibility on the aggregate ‘common good’ of all persons (Aday, 2002).
Up to the 1980s, the public health department was playing a critical role in ensuring quality personal health care services for Americans. However, after the review of its mandate, it is clear that the public health department does not look into the personal health care services that individuals do not purchase.

Conclusion
Conclusively, it comes as given that the health of a community plays a key role in the functioning of its social systems. However, as a factor of the policies embedded in the US healthcare system, the contemporary American society has been tailored to believe in individual responsibility for better health. The lack of a centralized healthcare system and insurance fund are indicators of individualism; or better still, the healthcare system works on a policy that ‘you receive what you can pay for’ is a pointer for individual responsibility rather than community responsibility for health.
References
Aday, L.A. (2001) At risk in America, The health and health care needs of vulnerable populations in the United States. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Pp 1-2.