MED109: Introduction to Health and Community Medicine

Vocabulary practice flashcards generated from Module 1.1–1.4 lecture notes covering Community Medicine, Public Health, Rights Frameworks, and Sociological Foundations of Health.

Health (WHO, 2006)

A state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

Social Well-Being

A person's ability to self-actualize (manifest or fulfill their purpose and/or role) in society, supported by adequate living conditions, employment, educational access, and purchasing power for basic necessities.

Hedonic Well-Being

A domain of well-being rooted in the philosophy of Aristippus that equates well-being with maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain, operationalized in modern psychology as Subjective Well-Being (SWB).

Eudaimonic Well-Being

A domain of well-being traced to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics arguing that true well-being is found in living with purpose and actualizing human potential, formalized by Ryff into Psychological Well-Being (PWB).

Living Standards Framework (LSF)

A framework developed by the New Zealand Treasury for its Wellbeing Budget that measures national progress across four core capitals: Human, Social, Natural, and Financial and Physical Capital.

OECD Better Life Index

An international benchmarking tool launched in 2011 by the OECD that measures well-being across 38 member countries using 11 dimensions covering material living conditions and quality of life.

Claim-Right

A Hohfeldian incident representing an entitlement that correlates to a mandatory duty in another party, such as a citizen's claim to medical care imposing a binding duty on the State to provide it.

Privilege / Liberty

A Hohfeldian incident representing freedom to act without a duty to refrain or without State interference, such as bodily autonomy and a patient's right to refuse treatment.

Power (Hohfeldian Incident)

A Hohfeldian incident referring to the legal capacity to alter legal relations, exercised when patients provide informed consent, execute advance care directives, or designate a healthcare proxy.

Immunity (Hohfeldian Incident)

A Hohfeldian incident that protects an individual from having their legal standing or status arbitrarily altered by others or the State, such as protection against arbitrary removal of health coverage.

Will Theory of Rights

A theory asserting that the function of a right is to protect the agency and choice of the rights-holder, making them a 'small-scale sovereign' with control over another's duty.

Interest Theory of Rights

A theory asserting that the function of a right is to protect and advance the essential interests and well-being of the rights-holder, regardless of their capacity to choose.

Natural Rights

Inherent entitlements derived from human nature or divine law that exist independently of government recognition or positive legal codification.

Legal Rights

Positive rights explicitly bestowed, posited, and codified by human authority within a specific legal system and jurisdiction.

Human Rights

Universal, inalienable, indivisible, and interdependent entitlements inherent to all human beings, codified through international instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Basic Rights (Shue's Framework)

Foundational rights identified by Henry Shue—categorized into Security and Subsistence—that serve as indispensable preconditions without which no non-basic rights can be enjoyed.

Indivisibility Doctrine

A principle in international human rights law asserting that civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights are completely interconnected, such that the violation of one right destroys the others.

Biomedical Model

A traditional medical approach that views health strictly as the absence of pathology, treats the body like a machine, and focuses on high-technology, hospital-based clinical interventions.

Declaration of Alma-Ata (1978)

A landmark declaration convened by WHO and UNICEF in Alma-Ata, USSR, establishing Primary Health Care (PHC) as the key strategy to achieve 'Health for All'.

Primary Health Care (PHC)

Essential healthcare based on practical, scientifically sound, and socially acceptable methods made universally accessible to individuals and families through their full participation.

Comprehensive Primary Health Care (CPHC)

A horizontal health strategy advocated by Alma-Ata that improves multiple aspects of community health simultaneously by addressing broader social determinants like water, sanitation, and education.

Selective Primary Health Care (SPHC)

A vertical health strategy proposed by Walsh and Warren that targets specific high-mortality diseases using discrete medical interventions rather than addressing social roots of illness.

GOBI-FFF

An SPHC initiative combining Growth monitoring, Oral rehydration therapy, Breastfeeding, Immunization, Food supplementation, Female education, and Family planning.

Primary Care

The specific level of clinical service delivery representing an individual's first point of contact with healthcare professionals to receive clinical treatment.

Inverse Care

A health system failure identified by WHO where healthcare delivery becomes concentrated among affluent individuals who can afford it rather than those with the greatest health needs.

Fragile States

Low-income nations meeting World Bank LICUS criteria where GDP and life expectancy stagnate or decline due to severe failures in governance, security, and rule of law.

Public Health (Winslow)

The science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting physical health and efficiency through organized community efforts.

Community Medicine

A distinct discipline applying clinical medicine and epidemiology to a defined population to proactively identify and solve healthcare problems at the grassroots level.

Socio-Ecological Model

A multi-layered framework illustrating how individual health outcomes are influenced by nested rings of Interpersonal, Organizational, Community, and Public Policy factors.

Gemeinschaft

Ferdinand Tönnies' term for traditional community structures defined by mutual bonds, shared history, village settings, strong social ties, extended families, and tradition.

Gesellschaft

Ferdinand Tönnies' term for modern society characterized by impersonal roles, urban industrial settings, individual self-interest, weak social ties, nuclear families, and legal control.

Mechanical Solidarity

Émile Durkheim's concept of social cohesion in traditional societies where people are connected through similarity, shared beliefs, and a minimal division of labor.

Organic Solidarity

Émile Durkheim's concept of social cohesion in modern societies where individuals with specialized roles are held together by mutual dependence and a highly developed division of labor.

Communitas

A concept coined by Victor Turner describing a temporary state of equality, solidarity, and togetherness that emerges during crises or disasters, temporarily suspending normal social hierarchies.

Structural Functionalism (Parsons)

A sociological theory by Talcott Parsons examining how sickness impacts social stability and how society adapts when a sick member assumes the 'sick role'.

Symbolic Interactionism

A sociological theory focusing on the subjective meanings, symbols, and societal perceptions attached to illnesses and treatments, directly influencing individual health-seeking behaviors.

Conflict Theory (Marx)

A sociological theory asserting that health inequalities stem from structural struggles between wealthy resource-owners and resource-deprived groups under capitalist economic systems.

Biopower (Foucault)

Michel Foucault's concept describing how modern governance controls and regulates populations through medical classification, registration, disease surveillance, and risk stratification.

Medicalization

A process emphasized in Social Constructionism where non-medical human conditions or life experiences (such as aging or sadness) are categorized and managed as medical disorders.

Disease

The objective pathological or physiological abnormality recognized by biomedical knowledge.

Illness

The subjective personal experience of symptoms, suffering, limitation, and altered bodily functioning.

Sickness

The social recognition, expectations, institutional consequences, and societal status attached to being ill.

Stigma Barrier

An active mechanism comprising Structural, Social, Self, and Anticipated stigma that impedes healthcare access, causing delayed diagnosis, treatment interruption, and hidden epidemics.

Syndemic

A synergistic pattern of illness where disease interactions, adverse social conditions, and population vulnerabilities combine to produce health impacts far greater than the sum of their parts.

G.A.B.A.Y. Framework

A 21st-century medical practice framework defining the physician as Gatekeeper of Technology, Agent of Empowerment, Bridge Builder, Advocate for Social Justice, and Yielding Leader.