The conceptualisation of health and disease in veterinary medicine

Stefan Gunnarsson

doi:10.1186/1751-0147-48-20

Abstract

BackgroundThe concept of health, as well as the concept of disease, is central in veterinary medicine. However, the definitions "health" and "disease" are not generally acknowledged by veterinarians. The aim of this study was to examine how the concepts "health" and "disease" are defined in veterinary textbooks.MethodsVeterinary textbooks in several disciplines were investigated, but only textbooks with explicit definitions of the concepts were selected for examination.ResultsEighty out of the 500 relevant books within veterinary medicine were written for non-veterinarians. Eight percent of the books had an explicit definition of health and/or disease. More frequently, textbooks written for non veterinarians did have definitions of health or disease, compared to textbooks written for professionals. A division of health definitions in five different categories was suggested, namely:1. Health as normality, 2. Health as biological function, 3. Health as homeostasis, 4. Health as physical and psychological well-being and 5. Health as productivity including reproduction.ConclusionFew veterinary textbooks had any health or disease definition at all. Furthermore, explicit definitions of health stated by the authors seemed to have little impact on how health and disease are handled within the profession. Veterinary medicine would probably gain from theoretical discussions about health and disease.

Highlights

The concept of health, as well as the concept of disease, is central in veterinary medicine
The concepts of health and disease are just briefly reviewed and Martin and co-authors refer that productivity is commonly used as a surrogate definition of health in veterinary medicine, this has been seriously questioned by several others [e.g. [2]]
The aim of the present study is to examine how the concepts of "health" and "disease" are defined in veterinary textbooks in pathology, epidemiology, internal medicine and other areas

Summary

Introduction

The concept of health, as well as the concept of disease, is central in veterinary medicine. The naive definition of health in veterinary medicine seems to be that health is no more than the very absence of disease, which can be considered as a dichotomous definition. This position is often the case for basic assumptions in e.g. epidemiology, where the disease frequency commonly is calculated based on that disease is binary, which means that either the animal has the disease or it does not have the disease. The concepts of health and disease are just briefly reviewed and Martin and co-authors refer that productivity is commonly used as a surrogate definition of health in veterinary medicine, this has been seriously questioned by several others [e.g. The concepts of health and disease are just briefly reviewed and Martin and co-authors refer that productivity is commonly used as a surrogate definition of health in veterinary medicine, this has been seriously questioned by several others [e.g. [2]]

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Conclusion