Alma Ata Mental Health Model

In many health models, they determine that health is merely the absence or presence in an individual, while Alma Ata suggests that health is determined through not only ones physical health but their “… mental and social wellbeing …” . Alma Ata takes into consideration that although a person is physically healthy that does not mean that they do not face mental health issues or live in socially acceptable living conditions. Mental health is an issue in which I believe is looked past by many people, some even stating that mental health and depression is not a health issue that needs fixing by medicine, it is merely the individuals lack of dealing with their personal issues, sometimes even blatantly saying that “People with depression should just

One’s health status is linked to their income, social status, education, health services, and social support networks that are readily available to them, which is why individuals from low income families or even low income countries tend to receive more aliments then individuals of high social status. Individuals who live in poverty stricken areas have lower health services in their vicinity or even the lack of education that may aid in the prevention of these diseases. If an individual has young children but must travel hours to their closest primary health care provider, the person must take into consideration of who will be able to watch over their children. In areas where public services are available such as day cares, individuals are more inclined to leaving their children in order to receive the health care attention they need.

Although Alma Ata does bring up the great idea that health is not only being ill and takes into consideration all factors that affect an individual’s overall health, an issue I feel that comes up is the fact that in order to be considered health by Alma Ata you must not be ill, have any mental health issues, and have living conditions that are considered fit for the general public. Taking all these aspects of health that is required it seems highly unlikely that many people in our population

As a society, I feel that we need to demand that public services be readily available in areas that are in dire need of help, this may be the inner city kids who may not have many luxuries at home so they are told to go outdoors and in order to keep them out of trouble are able to join after school programs or even the First Nations family whose mother may be ill but will not be able to see a doctor for months at a time due to the fact that her case just falls behind a number of others. It does not seem right that the Bill Gates foundation spends more money on helping aid in health care services then the WHO or that the Canadian government spends more money in National Defence then they do in Environmental Canada. While it is great that the Canadian government is willing to put billions of dollars into protecting the country from harm, there should be on emphases on spending more money into creating environment sustainability, achieve universal education, or even help in combating malaria, TB, and HIV/AIDS in the countries that surround us. The idea that we must work as individuals for the benefit of our communities is what we should strive for; a world were all work together as one. We all want the best of others around us, which in turn will help us individually, but are sometimes too quick to think that we as individuals