[The concept of health in the perspective between description and evaluation]

Discourse on the concepts of health and disease is characterized by the differences between two main perspectives: the biostatistic and the holistic. This paper describes some of these differences and aims at showing how they can illuminate the ongoing debate on criterions for deciding priorities in the health services. It is argued that the basic perspective of The Lønning Committee (a Government appointed committee to consider criterions for making priorities in the medical sector) is holistic, and that its report illustrates how a society forms its own practical and evaluative concept of health. This concept seems to be based on a complex medical, social and cultural fundament rather than on a strictly biomedical one.