SOCIAL HYGIENE
Author: Kolyo Gargov
The following manual for students of social hygiene reflects the new attitude towards health and disease in the 80s, as well as, towards the new mass phenomena taking part in our society. This new approach, however, does not deviate from the subject matter of the social hygiene and the social aspects of medicine as a whole - further, it advances the fundamentals of socialist health care as postulated by the classics of soviet social medicine - N. Semashko /1874-1949/ and Z. Solowyeev /1876-1928/ - namely, for a creative synthesis between clinical and prophylactic medicine.
The main objective of the social hygiene science is to give a professional estimate for the role of the social factors connected with the health status of the patient. This knowledge should be supportive in two aspects:
| as a coordinative effort for the work of the primary health care physicians /i.e., working in the rural, urban, industrial and other general practice districts/ and for health care managers as a whole; |
| as a connection or link between the principal community leaders and the health authorities on the other hand; |
The question of health care organization and management has been a priority for bulgarian medicine, since, the revival processes of the new emerging bulgarian nation developed in the 19th century. At that time, it reflected the Russophile and Russophobe tendencies among the bulgarian medical intelligence. Later, social hygiene got its own face in the period between the two world wars, and, was an instrument in the monopolistic strivings of the ruling class. With the socialist revolution on 9 September 1944, there was a process for socialization of medicine to the left - as given by the many correctives in the "Public Health Law" - which, is continuing up to now in the light of the "Health for All" era. In the last years, soviet, bulgarian and other authors give a new dimension to the social hygiene problematic, effectively, in the climate of World Health Organization directives.
We shall continue to aim at a collaborative place of our discipline among the other medical specialties. Human health has always included its social components, and, at this stage the clinical-social approach is the one that gives a real value to the relation between physician and patient - epitomized, as an object of medical activity. However, the development of social hygiene has always shown a facility towards methodological re-armament /i.e., at the present moment, the available methods are cumbersome, time-consuming and don't give excellent answers to emergency questions/. The socialist community have to respond to this tasks and requirements with new propositions.
Our new book have kept the structure and organization of the previous manuals for students education /N.B., see the reviews on the textbooks from A. Panev, P. Kolarov and H.Petkov in the contents of our presentation/. The editor has been taking into account the possible short-comings of a text with tuition orientation. It is hoped, that, some additional literature and other illustrative material will help the reader. Every critical notes and proposals will be accepted by the editorship, thankfully.
|
|
Classics of Soviet Social Medicine Nikolai Semashko /Left/ and Zinovi Solowyeev /Right/ |
|
CONTENTS
Introduction to social hygiene
Chapter 1: Social foundation of health and disease. The individual health.
Chapter 2: The health of the group and the community.
Chapter 3: The concept of health care.
Chapter 4: Organization and management of health care.
Chapter 5: Health culture and health education.
Chapter 6: The health of the family.
Chapter 7: The health and the working environment.
Chapter 8: Health aspects of customs and communications.
Chapter 9: Fundamentals of polyclinic health care.
Chapter 10: Hospitalization of the diseased.
Chapter 11: Social-hygiene problems of women and motherhood.
Chapter 12: Social-hygiene problems of childhood, adolescence and youth.
Chapter 13: Social-hygiene problems of old age.
Chapter 14: Medical ethics and morality.
