Defining health

Societies are here postulated as autopoietic systems, that is, they are living unities the components of which maintain processes that ensure the production of such components. Autopoietic systems are circularly involved in maintaining themselves and society partakes of this selfmaintaining characteristic. Health is a societal concept applied to its component individual human beings and describes their fitness for the survival of the society. Medicine that treats disease is concerned with the individual and his survival. Health caring institutions and concepts (right to health care, health insurance, public health programs) are all societal endeavours that are not designed for individual benefit, but constitute an increasingly important survival strategy of societal unities. It can be anticipated that the most important medical issues in the future (allocation of resources, genetic manipulation, population growth control, right to medical care) will concern the disjunctive efforts of medicine and public health as the respective survival strategies of individuals and societies.