Individualist health promotion in contrast, focuses on the lifestyles and behavior of individuals. This model stresses and encourages personal responsibility. The emphasis is on individual prevention. The social medicine model looks at the social themes in society. It focuses on life changes and social structure and even though it is also preventative in nature, it advocates the structural transformation of society.
The biomedical model emerged over the past 300 years and it has established itself as the dominant form of medicine. The individualist health promotion is termed ‘the new public health’. Even though it contrasts with the biomedical model in the fact that its emphasis is on prevention rather than curative, it still acknowledges the biological component of a disease. There have been numerous campaigns introduced, for example, the ‘life, be in it’ campaign introduced in the 1970’s by the Whitlam government in the time when the Australian welfare system was in crises. The reasons being that prevention is cheaper than cure, it doesn’t require any structural changes to the health care system and that this model is compatible with the existing biomedical model. Other campaigns such as ‘slip, slop and slap’ and ‘jump rope for heart’ have also been introduced recently further emphasizing its compatibility with the biomedical model. The culture of the individualist health promotion model is that issues are individualized, thus everyone is responsible for their own health. The problem with this is that if an issue is one of public concern, it can be made into an individual problem.
The social medicine model is similar to that of the individualist health promotion model in the fact that its emphasis is also on prevention. It differs although in that its prevention comes through social change, as opposed to the individual. The social medicine model acknowledges the biological component of disease, but unlike the biomedical model, the social medicine model believes that the diseases are due to the social conditions in which they develop. This model believes that the origin of the great diseases in the 18th and 19th centuries was the social environment of developing capitalism. The social medicine model demands changes in society’s structure. It believes that rather than examine the individual’s body in search for bacteriological explanations of disease or search for new drugs in the laboratory, this model identifies the social environment as the source of sickness and ill health. It calls for changes in living conditions, fixing the rate of unemployment and other radical changes. This models emphasis is on social reform and requires the spending of lots of money. Its culture doesn’t coincide with that of mainstream medicine, thus being unfavorable among powerful organizations.
To further contrast the three models, take the example of obesity. The biomedical models view on obesity is one of a disease, therefore subscribing medication to cure this disease. If that doesn’t work, refer them to a dietician who places the patient on a strict diet. In extreme cases, surgery might even be an option. The individualist health promotion model deals with obesity by campaigning to prevent obesity before it occurs. This model will campaign to eat healthy foods, to exercise regularly, to watch your own weight and read food labels to avoid unhealthy foods. This model places the onus on the individual to prevent obesity from occurring. The social medicine model deals with obesity by trying to change the culture of society. Today’s culture is all about fast food chains making profit, and not being concerned with the health of the public. For example, the fast food chain McDonalds being forced to introduce a range of healthy foods and putting a nutrition table on every burger wrapper due to growing number of law suits by people becoming obese after consuming large quantities of their foods. With advances in technology, society’s culture is becoming lazier, for example, people choosing to drive, rather than walk; to watch sports rather than participate; pay their bills or do their hopping on the internet, rather than go doing it themselves. It is for this reason the social medicine model calls for changes in the structure and culture of society to prevent obesity, thus placing the onus on the government.
From the above example, it can therefore be seen that the biomedical model is the most favored because it doesn’t threaten powerful groups and can be harnessed by capitalists. The individual health promotion is increasing in popularity as it is relatively cheap and can reduce the governments spending on healthcare, while coinciding with the biomedical model. Social medicine on the other hand, calls for radical changes in society’s structure and culture, thus not being favorable among powerful organizations.
