Environments for Health

· A comprehensive, new view of the Western healthcare model--describes a new culture in which human health is conceived as a dynamic balance with one's environment · Essential and refreshing reading for students and health practitioners alike · Written in an accessible and engaging style The vast proportion of cash spent on healthcare by governments and individuals in the world is spent on systems of healthcare based more-or-less on the Western acute care model. The imbalance of these systems, with their overemphasis on cure, as opposed to care and prevention or maintenance of health, is well documented. Salutogenic healthcare takes a holistic view of the individual as part of a social and environmental continuum rather than as an isolated collection of symptoms; it also seeks to reassess the very meaning of health. There are some indications that we--as a global culture--are moving towards this new salutogenic model, but the speed of the movement has to be accelerated. This book sets out to chart the main steps of this movement and to indicate some of the ways of thinking and action that can help form new ways of approaching healthcare.

John J. Macdonald holds the Foundation Chair in Primary Health Care at the University of Western Sydney and is Visiting Professor of Community and Public Health in Birzeit, Palestine.