Biomedical and social models are important to understand the cause of health issues around the world. Increasing rates of non-communicable diseases in contrast to communicable diseases mean that social models have become more relevant over the past 150 years. Smoking related diseases such as lung cancer and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) are non-communicable and in developed nations the rates of this disease are increasing. Social models such as the biopsychosocial model and the Dahlgren and Whitehead model can help explain the increasing trend, but in different ways and this is what the essay will be exploring. Over the past 150 years the trends in health have changed as there has been a decline in communicable diseases due …show more content…
Advances in technology allow better and more accurate interventions to treat patients. Another advantage is that the biomedical model extends life expectancy and can improve quality of life treating illnesses and diseases (Wade & Halligan, 2004). A disadvantage to this model is that it is unable to diagnose common problems like certain viral illnesses such as the common cold as this does not show up on blood tests. A second disadvantage is that the biomedical model does not include social factors such lifestyle or the different risk factors for certain ethnic groups. Also in the biomedical model the mind and body are separate so psychological factors are also not included (Engel, 1977). The biomedical model is mainly relevant to communicable diseases so over the past 150 years it has become less relevant as communicable disease rates have been …show more content…
The Dahlgren and Whitehead model explores how public policy and structural factors affect the health of populations and how to prevent diseases (Dahlgren & Whitehead, 2007). It is like the biopsychosocial model in how it contains the social aspect of how ethnic and cultural aspects cannot change and how this can help explain the cause of disease (Borrell-Carrio, Suchman , & Epstein, 2004). The Dahlgren and Whitehead model is different to the biomedical model as it more concerned about non-communicable disease and disparities in populations. A disadvantage of this model is that there is no biological component in the causation of disease so there does not contain information about illnesses, diseases and their treatment in a molecular sense. Also the levels are not connected in a way that variables can be inbetween levels, so it can be difficult to categorise factors impacting