The transformation of theoretical approaches to understanding health in western science

This article examines the main theoretical approaches to understanding public health and its key criteria. The evolution of health understanding is analyzed from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 21st century. The first and main line of the transformation of health understanding is associated with the theory of medicalization and the criticism of the patocentric approach. The demographic transition, the quantitative predominance of chronic, oncological and cardiovascular diseases over infectious ones force to rethink the definition of health, which is now interpreted not only as a result of medical intervention and the impact of a small group of medical specialists. Nowadays, attention to the subjective and social factors of health is significantly increased. The medical model is supplemented and enriched by sociological and psychological theories of health. Understanding of health is analyzed in such sociological concepts as structural functionalism, social constructionism, phenomenological sociology, symbolic interactionism.