Now that the topic of health and wellness is firmly at the center of American public policy, it is important that you understand not only what the Federal Government plans to do with your health care, but also how it will define the idea of health and wellness in the future.
The World Health Organization (WHO) defined wellness a number of years ago as something far more reasonable than the absence of illness. When it released its definition, everyone seemed to shrug and say, that sounds as good as anything else we've heard in the last hundred years; and that was that. Researchers began to expand on this new idea of wellness and a burgeoning new field of health research began to take form.
My graduate research took the WHO statement a step further and asked an extensive international population of health-related providers, researchers and policy makers a simple question... in regard to global health promotion, how EXACTLY are we defining wellness ?
What I found was a consensus regarding six general areas of influence that were critical components of global health promotion and wellness. I then created an acronym (and trademarked it!) to make those six areas of influence easy to remember.
PIECES is my acronym to represent the Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, Community, Environmental, and Spiritual components of health. A simple word for a complex set of influences that touch every life in the world!
It is important to note that while some of these PIECES are firmly controlled by the science-based Western medical processes, we are beginning to realize that others may be better served through healing traditions favored by Eastern practitioners.
In the U.S., we are at the very cusp of accepting Eastern practices into our medical norms. The reality that Western scientists and practitioners are acknowledging some common ground exists between these two approaches to health and wellness is a HUGE step in the right direction!
Why should any of this matter to you?
Quite simply, because health represents big money invested, spent, and wasted. Washington is putting a magnifying glass over this issue and is pulling in the usual experts to look for ways to cut spending, eliminate waste, and use invested dollars more wisely.
Long story short, they want to pinpoint why Joe is healthy and John is not.
John is costing them a fortune so they need to either fix him cheaply or figure out a way to charge him for his lack of wellness. This is a target of health reform. Joe, on the other hand; has been enjoying life under the Federal radar because his good health isn’t costing anyone anything. Unfortunately for Joe, this is also where health reform is looking to make big changes.
The bottom line is this…there are many factors affecting the health of Joe and John and the usual experts of Washington aren’t necessarily the best voices for the job of advising healthcare reform.
There is no such thing as an easy fix but there are plenty of opportunities to chip away at the problem without ruining the advances brought about by the best medical community in the world. Before you allow yourself to get caught up in taking sides during the health reform debate, make sure you learn more about the role each of the PIECES play in determining individual and population health.
The way I look at it, education equals empowerment. My objective for this blog is to enlighten and educate those of you that want to learn about the PIECES of health. If we all empower ourselves with knowledge, perhaps health reform will begin to reflect the reality of our collective needs rather than the assumptions of the few that are shaping our future from within the Washington bubble.
Next blog…the PIECES of obesity
