With increasing progress in the medical sciences, and especially psychology and sociology, our society is at an opportune time to turnaround the dark history of stigmatization associated with mental illnesses. And the tools offered by biopsychosocial model of health can come handy in achieving this goal. Yet, while physicians try to understand the workings of the brain, many of its functions still remain a mystery. Even at the most advanced research laboratories, the abnormal functioning of the brain is only understood at a theoretical level, without any concrete evidence to substantiate it. But what is important though is that there is a consensus within the medical community that most psychiatric illnesses are induced to physiological (or organic) causes. To this extent, they are on par with physical illnesses like cancer and tuberculosis. Hence, the sufferers should be treated just like the physically afflicted get treated. This thesis is one of the most important one to have emerged in medical sciences over the last decade or so. It is hoped that a wider awareness of this new sociological understanding of mental illnesses will pave the way for a more tolerant society. (Naidoo & Wills, 2005, p.203)
Finally, one of the key syntheses of the points made above is implementation of recommendations given by the World Health Organization. Drawing inspiration from the merits of the biopsychosocial model, the report by WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health (CSDH) suggests a comprehensive array of changes to give all societies world class health care. These recommendations could have the widest impact on patients, families, and communities, including treatment of people with substance abuse and more aggressive management of obesity. There is strong proof that shows that carrying out these proposals to the word will bring the healthcare industry’s performance on par with advances in medical technology as well as lifting the ethical standards prevailing in the health system. The CSDH
“combined epidemiological analysis of health inequalities within and across countries with an essentially cosmopolitan ethical argument for motivating global social action to mitigate ill health and health inequalities. The CSDH’s report is the first to apply social epidemiological analysis to global health, which is distinct from the prevailing analyses of the causes of ill health, which focus on such individual-level determinants as exposures to harmful agents, behaviors, and genetics, or those analyses that overlook social-group differences in health outcomes within countries. Moreover, the commission’s justification for addressing ill health and health inequalities within and across countries is grounded in the ethics of justice, as opposed to such reasons as national security or interest, economic growth, charity, or a self-evident “contain and control” epidemiological imperative. The moral principle that informs the commission’s work is that where one can do something to alleviate avoidable suffering through reasonable means, one should do so.” (Venkatapuram, 2010, p.119)
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