Health inequalities - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages To begin with, the social model is more of how society and environment affect people’s well-being. Examples of such factors are income, diet, poverty, poor housing and cultures. It empowers people on how to be responsible for their lifestyles to make the population in general healthier by changing the environmental factors to allow for healthy choices. The biomedical model defines bad health as the appearance of a disease and ill symptoms resulting from injuries and infections. According to Popay (2012), the two are similar in that they do educate the society on preventing diseases from occurring. They also focus on saving the lives of patients and provide counseling to services on what to do when ailing from a disease. Some of their differences may also be discussed where it is necessary that the biomedical model of health focuses on eradication of illness via diagnosis and treatment that is effective. It takes the body as a machine and works on the theory that if part of the body has problems it has to be fixed or repaired just like in a machine. Blane (2012) adds that the social model emphasizes changes in society people that people must always make to improve their lives. The biomedical model deals with a particular disease that has particular therapy for a cure; here, what is analyzed at is the cause of the illness rather than informing the patient on how it all occurred so that they can avoid making the same mistakes once more. A good example is that of a drunkard who is normally diagnosed with liver cirrhosis. The person may not be told whether it is caused by excessive drinking of alcohol and eventually would not know not to drink again which makes them ever ill in the long term. According to Elstad (2011), the social model is normally based on meeting people's basic needs so as to achieve health gains. It uses medical knowledge to treat all unhealthy patients and is very persuasive; if a doctor advises the patient on something, they are highly likely to take on the treatment without questioning the doctor. Moreover, in the biomedical model, medicine and science are both used with no consideration to social factors in line with the causes of the disease. The doctor is the one who decides if a person is suffering from a disease through a scientific process. According to Wilkinson (2011), the patients may be allowed to make choices concerning their health where the advice is certainly based on the treatment but not obliged to go through it. Due to the high cost of most treatments and this model has financial funding from the government while the biomedical one has little or none. Bartley (2011) acknowledges that the main advantage of the social model of health is that it looks at root causes of illnesses and therefore tries to change factors that caused the disease to prevent re-infection. It is not just about sending the patient away with a bottle of medical pills until the next time they become sick once more. On the other hand, Bartley (2011) says the model takes a lot of time to look for the origin of the illness and also a prevention method to stoop its occurrence once more. When it comes to the biomedical model, some of its advantages include its broad use in most countries so treatment offered is similar in the countries. It is very effective at treating and diagnosing illnesses because it uses modern medical technology-centered equipment which aids in the healing process. ...Download file to see next pagesRead More