International Journal of Preventive, Curative & Community Medicine

Volume 4, Issue 2 - 2018, Pg. No. 1-3

Peer Reviewed & Open Access Journal
Editorial

Holistic Health and Wellbeing: How to Achieve it

NS Dharmshaktu1
Principal Advisor, Public Health, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Govt. of India, Nirman Bhawan, New Delhi.
1

DOI: htps://doi.org/10.24321/2454.325X.201808

Abstract
According to WHO the health is “a state of complete physical, mental, social wellbeing and not merely
absence of disease or inirmity”, which has been widely used for last 70 years for all pracical purposes
but it is now realized that many areas are let uncovered and needs amendment. Author jusiies that
emerging concept of holisic health and wellbeing, SDG indicators of 2016-2030, global warming etc., are
demanding more domains to be addressed. It is recently also realized that sustainable development goals
will be diicult to achieve in 2030 by member countries if environmental health, healthy yoga lifestyle and
community engagement are not included in universal health coverage approach. Through a deiniion of
health it may be possible to create advocacy on priority areas needing resource mobilizaion to achieve
holisic health and wellbeing. This aricle is expressed by the author in his personal capacity.

Keywords: Sustainable Development Goals, Universal Health Coverage, Health for all
Introduction
The definition of health was given by World Health
Organizaion (WHO) in 1948 as “a state of complete physical,
mental, social wellbeing and not merely absence of disease
or inirmity.” This simple yet very efecive deiniion has
been widely used for seven decades and has been helpful to
countries for developing health policy guidelines, planning
and educaion purposes. WHO Health Assembly set the
target of Health for All in May 1977 to be achieved by the
end of the year 2000, which was followed subsequently
by advocaing Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set
by United Naions in the year 2000 for achievement by
2015 and now the target of achievement of Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) set by United Naions in 2016
for achievement by 2030 for the member countries. Over
the period it has been realized that the income and GDP
alone do not result into holisic health and wellbeing.
Therefore, the Bhutan government has adopted the gross
naional happiness and not gross naional product to
achieve happiness and wellness of their people.
Background upon which Holistic Health &
wellbeing should be considered
Medical data on the magnitude of morbidity and mortality
caused by major health problems at the global, naional,
and state levels as well as data esimates available on
comparison of major diseases burden as done by diferent
agencies/insitutes need to be viewed keeping in mind
the following:
• Assessment of their quality;
• Assessment of diseases which occur in repeated
episodes, generally more than once a year such as
Inluenza, including other acute respiratory infecion,
diarrheal disease, etc.;
• The level of parasitaemia or viremia due to disease of
public health importance of the paricular organism
in the apparently healthy populaion as a threat of
future epidemic and endemicity;
• The populaion already infected by a major disease and
currently under incubaion period, which is bound to
be reported later on, etc.;

E-mail Id: nsdharmshaktu@yahoo.com

Orcid Id: htps://orcid.org/0000-0002-4520-079X
How to cite this aricle: Dharmshaktu NS. Holisic Health and Wellbeing: How to Achieve it. Int J Preven Curat Comm Med 2018;
4(2): 1-3.

Copyright (c) 2018 Internaional Journal of Prevenive, Curaive & Community Medicine (ISSN: 2454‐325X)
Editorial
Int. J. Preven. Curat. Comm. Med. 2018; 4(2)
• Esimate of diseases which are showing associaion
with global warming and climate change;
• The determining factor of percentage of people who
do not have basic ameniies of living such as food,
shelter and water as these are important determinants
of health and wellbeing;
• Percentage of populaion not having other fundamental
needs for health and wellbeing such as educaion,
social jusice, equity, minimum basic annual income,
peace and sustainable eco-system, for example, about
90% of people sufering from Kala Azar in Bihar and
Jharkhand state are from Mushar community most of
who live in jhuggi/temporary setlements;
• People who have disability/disigurement or hormonal
imbalances etc., can also enjoy good health.
Usefulness of Holistic Health and Wellbeing
Holisic health and wellness approach is the integraion of
mental, physical, social and environmental with healthy
Yoga life style pracices and spiritual wellbeing would result
in more holisic approach to disease prevenion. Wellbeing
is associated with self-preserved health, awareness and
pracice of good health behavior, social connectedness,
and producivity. Keeping in view all of the above points,
the revised deiniion of health is therefore suggested
by the author as “A state of complete physical, mental,
environmental and social wellbeing including absence
of determinants of disease in the body or in the close
proximity that can cause harm by use or by contact with
the body.”
Spiritual yoga, and life style that are behavioral pracices
leading to peace and wellbeing are covered by word
wellbeing in the above deiniion. The religious and cultural
pracices someimes also lead to peaceful and healthy life.
Therefore, useful spiritual, cultural, and religious parameters
are also covered under wellbeing in the deiniion. The
above revised deiniion covers all the physical, social,
mental, environmental, useful spiritual, yoga, cultural,
and religious wellbeing dimensions of health and also
parasitaemia/viremia without disease due to important
underlying latent infecion of public health importance,
hormonal, biochemical determinants, hazardous chemicals
etc., are included in the word environment.
The Universal Health Coverage (UHC) should be designed
on the basis of the revised deiniion of health that will
lead to a beter understanding and atainment of holisic
health and wellbeing. This will help in direcing focussed
priority and mobilizaion of resources in the right direcion.
What needs to be done to promote holistic health
and wellbeing?
• Create advocacy by organizing conferences/seminars,
on the topic of holisic health and wellbeing policy
ISSN: 2454-325X
DOI: htps://doi.org/10.24321/2454.325X.201808
2
development by states.
• There should be a mandate to provide pre-requisites
for basic ameniies of living and addiional fundamental
needs to the community. This has to be done by all
the relevant sectors, private agencies, corporates,
Non-governmental organizaions (NGOs), community
based organizaion (CBOs), etc.
• The development of inter-sectoral policy should
enable people to achieve quality health, ensure equal
opportuniies and resources, and should enable people
to achieve their fullest health potenial.
• In the community, jan bhagidar as the representaive
of community, should be given orientaion on health
and wellbeing covering health promoive, prevenive
and protecive skills at their level so that they could
guide their fellow members.
• The common plaform for engagement of community
should be at the primary health center (PHC) or urban
health center level where all the sectors/stakeholders
should converge to provide coverage for empowering
the community on various prevenive, promoive, and
protecive measures which will also efecively decrease
load on secondary and teriary care hospitals.
Universal Health Coverage (UHC)
• Following historic examples are noteworthy: During 3rd
century BC, King Asoka is reported to have said, “I am
going to propagate medical herbs in all my kingdom
to help their availability to all my people as my ethical
responsibility to provide good health to people”. King
Henry VIII (1559–97) in the United Kingdom (UK) had
praciced a system of social security to guard poor
people against social economic hardships. Universal
legal right to relief for every subject was provided under
the Poor Law in the 1600–1834 centuries in the UK.
• The UHC and access to health means everyone can
have it irrespecive of all barriers – geographical, caste,
creed, religion, age, etc., and the government has to
make their arrangement through proper set up.
• Criical areas for UHC would need a deiniion of health
and wellbeing for which the revised deiniion of health
given above should be adopted. A naional framework
of UHC should be developed. It would need primary,
secondary and teriary care health infrastructure
and training of staf, collaboraion, inter-sectoral
convergence, primary health care, involvement of
private sector, NGOs, CBOs, community engagement,
etc. It would need not just treatment alone but also
empowering the people to prevent, promote and
protect them from illness. It will address the physical,
mental, social, economic, environmental determinants
of health and wellbeing to provide fundamental pre-
requisites for health as well – that is why it is called
Universal Health Coverage in the irst place. It is
important to realize that achieving the essence of UHC

3 Int. J. Preven. Curat. Comm. Med. 2018; 4(2)
heavily relies on primary health care. To support the
basic primary health services at community level, the
states have to develop a separate cadre of supporive
public health specialists to guide and monitor for
sustaining primary healthcare services which will
provide a strong base for secondary and teriary level
health faciliies. The government may also need to
have a naional public health regulatory authority to
regulate the health services.
References
1. WHO. Health for All. 1978; 1.
2. Otawa Charter for health promoion. Internaional
conference on Health promoion 11-21 November
Editorial
1986 Otawa.
3. Peigrew LM et al. Primary health care and sustainable
development goals. The Lancet Nov 28th 2015;
386(10009).
4. Transiion from MDG to SDGs in India. WHO SERO.
Background Paper for Consultaion 10-11 May, 2016.
5. WHA Resoluion 30.43. May 1977.
6. United Naions Millennium Declaraion of Achieving
MDG Goals by 2015. UNDP.
7. United Naions Declaraion of SDG Goal Target 2016-
2030. UNDP, UN Sustainable Development summit,
New York, 25-27th Sep 2015.
8. Kishore J, Ray PC, Mandal RK. The pioneering Social
Reformers of India (2nd Ediion). New Delhi 2017.
ISSN: 2454-325X
DOI: htps://doi.org/10.24321/2454.325X.201808