The concept of health--some comments from a social science perspective

This paper is based on a chapter in recently published book called "Health care in growth" (Sjukvård i tillväxt), Liber Läromedel, Lund 1978. The aim of the paper is to point at urgent areas for research in the coming interdisciplinary so called Theme-research at the University of Linköping. This work was originally done for the steering-group of the theme Public Health and Health Care in the Society. There is a discussion on the concepts of health and disease from a sociological perspective. Some remarks are made on changes in evaluation of the mentioned concepts. Functions and dysfunctions of the definitions of health and disease are penetrated. Some questions of interest in this part: should the concept of disease be limited or expanded? What are the uses of definitions of health and ill-health? Also health indicators and health indices are discussed. There is also given some examples of more or less neglected fields of research.