Expanded Key Terms

A disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant.

The term disease refers to any variations in the normal functioning of an organic being and their health. The concept of disease requires a socialized understanding of what is considered normal and “healthy” functioning of an individual. Diseases can vary in their severity and duration of existence.

A state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being.

Health is the socialized state of being that all organic individuals are expected to operate and exist within. A healthy individual is not experiencing disease or any other ailment. Health is a subjective term and condition that is affected by a variety of social and biological factors and is affected by medical professional’s viewpoints of what is good and not in terms of health status for people.

Preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, or opportunities to obtain optimal health that are experienced by socially disadvantaged people.

Health disparities are differences in receiving a diagnosis, treatment, and more for individuals who are considered socially disadvantaged for a variety of reasons. Economic, racial, dietary, and geographic factors can affect an individual’s health disparities, and health disparities exist and prove the unequal treatment of individuals in the healthcare system based on demographic and other factors. Minority groups and people who are not economically wealthy often experience greater health disparities than individuals who identify as socioeconomically wealthy.

The organized provision of medical care to individuals or a community.

Healthcare is a term used to describe the organized provision of medical care to individuals or a community and is more commonly referred to as a healthcare system. Healthcare is all care, whether diagnosing, preventing, or treating, that individuals or entire societies experience to attempt to return to a socially-deemed healthy state. Healthcare systems are the networks of individual types of care an individual can receive.

The number of deaths of infants under 1 year of age per 1,000 live births.

The infant mortality rate is a measure to understand the number of infants in a group/society that are subject to death shortly after birth. The measurement is calculated from the number of infants out of 1,000 who die before reaching age one. The measurement is used to generalize many aspects of a society’s healthcare system and also to analyze the overall health of a society.

A public health insurance program for some people or families with limited incomes and resources.

Medicaid is a public health program funded by the U.S. government for individuals or families with limited income who cannot afford to be part of a private health network. Medicaid provides services and resources for individuals in the public, all covered by the government and its funding via taxpayer dollars. Medicaid and similar programs are a controversial topic around the globe, as many people do not support government funding of healthcare services and a healthcare system that is available for all people.

A global industry that involves traveling to obtain medical care.

Medical tourism is the term used to describe the global economic occurrence of individuals traveling to other countries to receive medical treatment, obtain prescription medicines, and have other interactions with medical and healthcare systems that they cannot or would not be able to receive in their home nation. Medical tourism highlights one of the largest issues with many healthcare systems around the world, and that is the drive for profits rather than care in healthcare systems. Medical tourism is stereotypically associated with plastic surgery operations, assisted suicide, abortions, filling prescription medications, and more in nations where these services are not constricted by price gouging, legal restrictions, or other factors.

Defining or labeling behaviors and conditions as medical problems.

Medicalization is the term used to define, view, and label behaviors and conditions that are problems. Medicalization is specifically looking at something from the lens that it is a medical-related situation and requires medical analysis, treatment, and more. Medicalization is a larger identifying term to state something is related to medical reasoning and a medical situation.

The science or practice of the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease.

Medicine is a term used to describe not only the practice of conducting health-based research and operations but also the products of these systems that are deemed medicines or medical devices. Medicine has the goal of identifying and diagnosing illnesses and diseases, treating and preventing such diseases, and even attempting to eradicate different diseases and illnesses from society. Medicine is a science that requires research and precision, and is vital to the longevity of humanity and society as a whole.

Refers collectively to all mental disorders, which includes anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, and more. These are described as sustained patterns of abnormal thinking, mood, and/or behaviors. 

Mental illness refers to all mental disorders that individuals can experience, from depression to anxiety to bipolar disorder and more. Mental illness is identified as abnormal behavior stemming from abnormal mental functioning, based on a socially upheld norm for what healthy and normal mental behavior is and should be. Mental illness can be particularly harmful to individuals because it is highly individualistic in its effects on people and origins, but also because it is not as obvious to identify when compared to physical/biological illnesses.

The phenomenon in which women experience more medical conditions and disability during their lives but unexpectedly live longer than men.

The morbidity paradox is the basic idea that, while women live longer than men, they are more likely to experience more health risks throughout their lifetime. These health risks extend to disease and illness as well as disability, and many risks unique to women are related to reproduction. Men may die sooner than women due to poor decision-making and other reckless behaviors.

A worldwide disease outbreak.

A pandemic is a global outbreak of a disease. Many people reading this today probably have lived through a pandemic, most notably the COVID-19 pandemic. Pandemics were considered products of history and eradicated through modern medicine, but the COVID-19 pandemic proved this untrue. Medicine takes time to develop cures and preventative treatments for illnesses and diseases, and pandemics are particularly dangerous in the essence that they are novel illnesses and diseases that have no known medical or natural opposition.

Health insurance plans that are marketed by the private health insurance industry as opposed to government-run insurance companies.

Private health insurance is a capitalistic approach, often stereotypically associated with the U.S., to healthcare where care is dependent on being a member of a network that gives access to providers and services that individuals need. Government-run insurance companies are generally oriented towards providing care for all and operate under a more utilitarian approach. Private health insurance networks do have a benefit which is generally more rapid access to care due to decreased number of patients in the network when compared to what a public healthcare system would have, but the costs of being a member are extremely high and therefore not accessible for all people.

A person’s position in society is based on the level of educational attainment, occupation, and income of that person or that person’s household. 

An individual’s socioeconomic status is their social status as deemed by other individuals and society as a whole. Socioeconomic status is largely and almost entirely based on one’s intersections of education level, occupation, and earning potential at that occupation. The term socioeconomic identifies the two large and key factors responsible for determining where in the socioeconomic hierarchy an individual falls — socio refers to social status, and economic refers to their economic status and financial income.