News tagged with human health

The environment and pharmaceuticals and personal care products: What are the big questions?

Researchers at the University of York headed a major international review aimed at enhancing efforts to better understand the impacts of chemicals used in pharmaceuticals or in personal care products, such as cosmetics, soaps, ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created May 30, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Pivotal role for proteins -- from helping turn carbs into energy to causing devastating disease

Research into how carbohydrates are converted into energy has led to a surprising discovery with implications for the treatment of a perplexing and potentially fatal neuromuscular disorder and possibly even cancer and heart ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created May 24, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Robotics: Gesturing for control

New intelligent algorithms could help robots to quickly recognize and respond to human gestures. Researchers at A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research in Singapore have created a computer program which recognises ...

Electronics / Robotics

created May 24, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

EU food agency rejects France ban on Monsanto GM maize

Europe's food safety agency EFSA on Monday rejected the grounds for a temporary French ban on a genetically modified strain of maize made by US company Monsanto.

Biology / Biotechnology

created May 21, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Mercury in dolphins: Study compares toxin levels in captive and wild sea mammals

Amid growing concerns about the spread of harmful mercury in plants and animals, a new study by researchers from The Johns Hopkins University and The National Aquarium has compared levels of the chemical in ...

Biology / Ecology

created May 21, 2012 | popularity 3.3 / 5 (4) | comments 0

Poisonous toxins a risk to African food security

A staple crop, known as cassava, in southeast Africa contains levels of toxins above those recommended safe for human consumption, a new study has found.

Biology / Biotechnology

created May 02, 2012 | popularity 3 / 5 (2) | comments 0

From decade to decade: What's the status of our groundwater quality?

There was no change in concentrations of chloride, dissolved solids, or nitrate in groundwater for more than 50 percent of well networks sampled in a new analysis by the USGS that compared samples from 1988-2000 to samples ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Apr 30, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Proteomics identifies targets of ionizing radiation in a human skin model

(Phys.org) -- How better to find out what effect ionizing radiation has on human skin than by using the real thing? Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory did that by performing a quantitative ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Apr 24, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Life imitates art in health-care recruitment workshop

Renowned Mexican artist Frida Kahlo's artwork is explored from a medical humanities perspective in a workshop entitled "Frida Kahlo – The Forgotten Medical Student."

Biology / Other

created Apr 23, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Green-glowing fish provides new insights into health impacts of pollution

Understanding the damage that pollution causes to both wildlife and human health is set to become much easier thanks to a new green-glowing zebrafish. Created by a team from the University of Exeter, the fish ...

Biology / Other

created Apr 18, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Investments in physics technology and education are key to the future success of medicine

Physics is fundamental to many of the technologies used across medicine today, yet it is often forgotten -- and certainly neglected -- that physics has made important contributions to health ever since the birth of medicine ...

Other Sciences / Social Sciences

created Apr 17, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0

Predicting the microbial 'weather'

New computer models are letting scientists forecast changes in the population of microbes in the English Channel up to a week in advance.

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Apr 17, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

International study estimates ocean value

Professor Robert Diaz of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William and Mary, is a co-editor of "Valuing the Ocean" a major new study by an international team of scientists and economists that attempts to ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Mar 22, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Genetic variation in human gut viruses could be raw material for inner evolution

(PhysOrg.com) -- A growing body of evidence underscores the importance of human gut bacteria in modulating human health, metabolism, and disease. Yet bacteria are only part of the story. Viruses that infect ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Mar 19, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

UNH research adds to mounting evidence against popular pavement sealcoat

A parking lot at the edge of the University of New Hampshire campus has contributed important research to an emerging concern for the environment and human health.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Mar 14, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Health

At the time of the creation of the World Health Organization (WHO), in 1948, Health was defined as being "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity".

This definition invited nations to expand the conceptual framework of their health systems beyond issues related to the physical condition of individuals and their diseases, and it motivated us to focus our attention on what we now call social determinants of health. Consequently, WHO challenged political, academic, community, and professional organisations devoted to improving or preserving health to make the scope of their work explicit, including their rationale for allocating resources. This opened the door for public accountability [3].

Only a handful of publications have focused specifically on the definition of health and its evolution in the first 6 decades. Some of them highlight its lack of operational value and the problem created by use of the word "complete." Others declare the definition, which has not been modified since 1948, "simply a bad one." [4]. More recently, Smith suggested that it is "a ludicrous definition that would leave most of us unhealthy most of the time." [5].

In 1986, the WHO, in the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, said that health is "a resource for everyday life, not the objective of living. Health is a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities." Classification systems such as the WHO Family of International Classifications (WHO-FIC), which is composed of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) also define health.

Overall health is achieved through a combination of physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being, which, together is commonly referred to as the Health Triangle.

For more information about Health, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.