Health care is a service people seek when they cannot manage their own health and related needs, either because of lack of knowledge, their physical or emotional status, or lack of social support.
Health care may be divined into community health and personal health services. Community health services are directed toward maintaining health in groups of people. Such services include water purification, sewage disposal, garbage collection, mosquito or rat control, or food or housing inspection. Without legislation and activity to maintain a livable, safe, and clean environment, communicable and other diseases or injuries would be rampant. Personal health services deal directly with the person / family in health promotion, disease prevention, or maintenance. Such services include assistance from the nurse, medical doctor, dentist, chiropractor, podiatrist, physical therapist, nutritionist, and others.
Some services are both community and personal in nature. For example, the person is immunized, but the community at large benefits too. Community services have a preventive aim; personal services often are curative or restorative in nature because treatment is emphasized. One of the current concerns of the health care system is that preventive care is often lacking for the person / family.
References :
Drosness, Daniel O., Steven Jonas, and Victor Sidel, “The Delivery of Health Care,” Practice of Medicine. Hagerstown, Md.: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1977.
Murray, RB and Zentner JP., Nursing Concepts for Health Promotion, Second Edtion, Prentice-Hall, Inc, Englewood Cliffs, N.J, 1979.
