Talk:Health

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Contents

[edit] What should be on a "Health" page?

We should discuss the organziation of this page. I'm still new to Wikipedia's organization, so open to other views. In general, I'd recommend that the "Health" page has two purposes. The first is to describe the different definitions or concepts of health. The second is to provide context (mostly links) to other aspects of health such as: health care, prevention and promotion of health, health risks, determinants of health, etc.

An example of how organziation could be improved is the section on Public Health on this page. Much of this infomation is duplicated on a seperate Public Health page. And on that other Public Health page, there are definitions and discusions about health that are on this page. I suggest that the Public Health section be entirely removed from this page, except for a link, and the definition of health be removed from the other Public Health page.

In terms of definitions of health, this Health page should include different concepts of health like the four "D" death, disability, disease and demogrphaphics - with links to other pages for these sections. There are other concepts of domains of health that should be added as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dgmanuel (talk • contribs) 20:47, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

I just recently added an external link to a site that I maintain that advertises a health television program entitled Boost. It was removed and the suggestion was that I read the external links page guidelines. I added it knowing full well that the ad on my site is commercial, but it is also a positive program about health in general. I feel that it is in the best interest of anyone looking for alternative sources about health and not exclusively about website promotion. After all, any external link partially promotes whatever it links. Rather than add the link back, I took the advice of the gentleman who removed it and I am adding a comment here. If I hear no objections I would like to put it back. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Robbiejackson (talk • contribs) 17:34, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Also read Wikipedia:Conflict of interest where it states persons should not add links to sites they have financial or self-promotional interests in. So, no you should not add it. You can describe it and the location on the talk page. Someone not involved with you may evaluate and add it per Wikipedia:Five pillars and other guides. Not that I think there will be a problem, but often newcomers do not understand policies and guidelines, and editing counter to them is discouraged by many means.Ward20 (talk) 21:56, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
While I see your point about conflict of interest, I'm not really adding anything other than information about a show regarding health. The reader is left to make up their own mind about whether or not it's of any value as per the item marked neutrality. I can see, however, where allowing people to add links willy nilly on wiki may set an ugly precedent. I am one of those who believe in common sense as the five pillars defers to as the last word. It is my opinion that citing other entertaining reference material, available to the general Canadian public is not in any way negative. I will not add the link, however, in the spirit of the grand wiki. Thank you for helping me to be more aware of the conflict of interest guidelines. I will take your suggestion and encourage others, who are not directly involved in the ichannel to add material, only where it is appropriate.Robbiejackson (talk) 15:54, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for your cooperation. I indented your remarks so you can see how the formatting makes the conversation easier to understand. I agree entertaining reference material, available to the general Canadian public is not in any way negative and is encouraged if it pertains directly to the article. As I understand it, it's not a WP:COI for you to describe on the talk page the relevance and location of the link and request comments from neutral editors. Maybe editors will agree and include it in the article. Material such as this can be added by WP:consensus even after being removed multiple times. If material continues being added and rejected in an antagonistic manner then it becomes contentious and is called WP:edit warring. Ward20 (talk) 19:36, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

somatic re-diverts from this page to "body" without any explanation of what somatic means or how it relates to body. Am not up to defining somatic (I thought it had something to do with Soma in Brave new world). However if no one puts anything on somatic on the body page by next time I come through I'll take out the link  :o) --(talk to)BozMo 13:38, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

Literally, the word 'somatic' means 'of or relating to the body' (see Merriam-Webster). However, biologists use it in several specialized concepts (i.e. somatic chromosome). Someone ought to do a search for all articles that include this word in their titles and make it a disambiguation page. I would do it, but I'm in the middle of a huge merge at the moment. --Smack 23:34, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The word somatic is derived from the Greek word soma, which translated in English means body. There is no distinction between human soma (body) or a celestial soma (body). Somatic should indeed be something relating to the body, even though the Greek somatiko means something of the body, so somatikos ponos is bodily pain.

[edit] Dubious information

I've cut the following bits out of the article, because IMHO they digress and are only tangentially related to the issue at hand. The bit about wealth is IMO wrong. You can be perfectly well while living in a tiny apartment or God-forsaken cabin with no more to your name than a few changes of clothes, a few dishes and a table. --Smack 23:51, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

That is, not only must everything be all right at the moment, but there should be subjective understanding that the "healthful" balance will continue. This understanding comes from somatic perception, including pain and discomfort, as well as cognitive perception. In order to feel health, people need to feel that they look well, are functioning as well as they always have, and that no external or internal risk imminently endangers their healthful state.

Wellness, in this sense, is subjective, the perception of being healthy, rather than any investigatable "reality" of being healthy. The behaviors in the pursuit of wellness sometimes include proven methodologies, but may also include practices with no scientifically proven capacity to increase health.

Wellness is thought by most to be closely related to wealth, either because one must control resources to avoid stress, or because wealth itself cannot be enjoyed unless one is well, and therefore one can be potentially both in command of resources and suffering a sort of sensual or stressful poverty at one and the same time. It is sometimes observed that even rich people who take on too many commitments often have just as little free time as the poor - and may very easily outrun their resources.

Wellness has developed into a buzzword used by the Network Marketing and Multi-Level Marketing "communities" to sell unproven health supplements and quack cures.

Wellness isn't just about health supplements and quack cures. Wellness is the overall state of being. In order to achieve absolute wellness a person must have complete health (emotional, social and physical). People in any financial situation (not just wealthy) can enjoy wellness if they wish (in other words they eat correctly, sleep correctly, exercise, enjoy their friends and only focus on the positive in their lives). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brewerdai (talk • contribs) 01:24, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wellness

I'm unsure what the "wellness" content is doing here. Since we have Wellness (alternative medicine), and since we're not pushing any size limits, its eems like we should either move all the wellness to here or move it all to that article. The double listing seems silly and POV, particularly since health is a much more mainstreamed concept than wellness, and yet is not represented in the wellness article. Snowspinner 20:57, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I certainly do. That is why Wikipedia has disambiguation pages. There are several other articles with ... (alternative medicine) which have survived both merge and vfd notices. Wellness is primarily what science people would claim to be a quack term. From the point of view of the new article, there is a significant difference between both the approach, philosophy and content to this topic; just like there is a different in the topic of meditation between a religious and an alternative medicine approach. Any encyclopedia that has tons of articles on essentially trash topics like tampons can at least get the topic of wellness correct. Furthermore, the main talk page of the project on AM clearly documents my intent to write this article was on the record many months ago. -- John Gohde 16:05, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I'm not arguing against the content. It's just that, if this article is already going to document wellness with more or less the exact same content, there's no point in having the satellite article. Either wellness should be removed from this article and this article should link to the AM article, or the articles should be merged. Snowspinner 18:31, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)
Okay, if you insist. -- John Gohde 10:09, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"wellness" is clearly within even conservative or historical definitions of health. Equally, it is clearly not solely within the domain of alternative medicine. I've added the 1986 WHO definition of health from the Ottawa Charter of Health Promotion and deleted the existing reference to "wellness" that now seems redundant. The 1986 definition is taught along side the 1948 definition in most entry-level health courses. Those same courses offer quite a few different perspectives and definitions of health, so I hope that these will be added in the not-too-distant future. There can't be many more important words or concepts than "health" in Wikipedia - let's all work together to make it reflect "health's" importance.Dgmanuel (talk) 00:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] something

I erased all the "external links" in the main body that had absolutely no business being there. They were all references to current books, with no indication as to why they were there. I admit that the meta-information that "health" is practically a copyrighted concept, only useable under a doctor's prescription, is slightly informative, but there was no labelling that such was the intended communication. Health is such a profound concept throughout our lives and history that if anyone wants to read about it, we could recommend either the millions of books available at the nearest medical college, or the pop-hits at any nearby place that sells books. That's it, I'm done, thank you :-) (Please have your insurance info ready when you finish reading this paragraph, thank you.)

[edit] Removed misleading content

A deeper inquiry into the definition of "health" reveals that what makes a cell healthy is unique from what makes an organism healthy. Similarly, what makes an organism healthy is unique from what makes a population healthy. To illustrate this point, consider that Japan has the greatest life expectancy of any nation (2004 UN Human Development Report), despite having one of the highest smoking rates, especially among men (2004 UN Human Development Report).

Aside from the gobbledygook regarding cell vs. organism and organism vs. population (which appears to be uncited) I removed this content as it was very misleading. There are a number of cranks who promote the idea that tobacco increases longevity and often cite Japan as an example. In fact, the people in question--the Okinawans--rarely smoke, and live longer than mainlanders due to lifestyle. Tobacco use in this context is irrelevant. --Viriditas | Talk 09:26, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removed external links

I removed a link to the website http://www.thehealthnews.org/ because it appears to consist solely of copyvio material reproduced, sometimes without attribution, from other sources. --Muchness 08:13, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

An anon editor keeps adding this link without explanation or addressing the concern raised above. If another editor feels it's appropriate for this article, feel free to add it back. --Muchness 14:54, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alternative medicine

I've removed the following: "However, with the lack of scientific proof through double blind testing, the placebo effect should be assumed to provide the health improvement in the case of successful alternative treatments until such testing can provide proof of any effects besides placebo. This is because as someone who feels well from their (possibly subconscious) belief in the therapies may lower their stress levels, resulting in beneficial effects on numerous factors, including blood pressure, gastrointestinal functioning, and immune response. The field of psychoneuroimmunology explores these links." It's POV to assert what should be assumed. -Medtopic 06:17, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pursuit of health

Where in Wikipedia does information on the human tendency to pursue health go? Might it fit here, in a new section of this article? Or elsewhere?

In reading some Aristotle today, I found an interesting quotation in Politics Book 1, Part IX, to wit: " ... in the art of medicine, there is no limit to the pursuit of health ..."

This seems to me to be profoundly relevant to one common characteristic of the developed world in the early 21st century. N2e 21:01, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Adding an external link

I think if WedMD is going to be allowed to stay as an external link, there should also be some more holistically focused websites. I typed in "wellness" into Google and Wellness.com came up first. Seems to be a valid resource for holistic health. I know there's another article for alternative medicine, but I think this site is relevant for the regular article on health too.

[edit] eHealth taken to talk page because of attribution problems

This section was added recently to the article but proper attribution of the material was not. The material appears to be sourced from here.

eHealth is an overarching term used today to describe the application of information and communications technologies in the health sector. It encompasses a whole range of purposes from purely administrative through to health care delivery. For example: within the hospital care setting, eHealth refers to electronic patient administration systems; laboratory and radiology information systems; electronic messaging systems; and, telemedicine -- teleconsults, telepathology, and teledermatology, to name a few within the home care setting, examples include teleconsults and remote vital signs monitoring systems used for diabetes medicine, asthma monitoring and home dialysis systems within the primary care setting, eHealth can refer to the use of computer systems by general practitioners and pharmacists for patient management, medical records and electronic prescribing. A fundamental building block of all these applications is the Electronic Health Record, which allows the sharing of necessary information between care providers across medical disciplines and institutions. Other important uses of eHealth are found in the areas of continuous medical education and public health awareness and education.

Attribution:
Non-commercial Reproduction Information on this site has been posted with the intent that it be readily available for personal and public non-commercial use and may be reproduced, in part or in whole and by any means, without charge or further permission from Health Canada.

We ask only that:

  • Users exercise due diligence in ensuring the accuracy of the materials reproduced;
  • Health Canada be identified as the source; and,
  • The reproduction is not represented as an official version of the materials reproduced, nor as having been made, in affiliation with or with the endorsement of Health Canada.

Ward20 (talk) 20:30, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

As one of the editors who reverted the removal of the eHealth text, I don't have a problem with it's removal as long as there is a proper reason given for doing so (as above). The problem I had was that it was being removed without an edit summary so there was no way of noing the editor's reasons for removing the text. --JD554 (talk) 20:49, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
I would have tried adding the attribution myself except permission is only given for non-commercial use and it is my understanding permission should be given for all use. I added the issue to Copyright_problems, maybe they will have more understanding of the issue. I only checked the material because an editor added the material and the same editor deleted the material several times, as you said all without explanation. I don't know why, but I am not sure it matters either. Ward20 (talk) 21:32, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Review copyright

This article was posted at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2008 February 28, a quick overview Canadian_copyright_law#Government_works and Copyright/Permission to Reproduce at source. Copy and paste from the source to Wikipedia would be a copyvio, thanks for removing it. Jeepday (talk) 16:57, 30 March 2008 (UTC)