[Health in its political, economic and social context]

In health, technological, diagnostic and therapeutic changes, the discovery of the human genome, or investigations with stem cells transform the medical practice and make one think that in a more or less distant future, medical theory and practice will be very different than classical medical practice as conceived and carried out in the past. Health and nursing concepts will also undergo modifications in accordance with scientific-technological advances as well as the religious and philosophical conceptions present in each epoch. "When historically reviewing health definitions, a constant appears which consists in projecting on the individual an ideal vision of society that each epoch has held of itself" (Casco, 1996:38). Health and nursing are concepts construed socially and culturally and their individual and collective interpretation determines different forms how to confront health and nursing processes.