COMMUNITY MEDICINE: HISTORY, WHAT IT STUDIES, METHODOLOGY - MEDICINE - 2024

The community medicine consists of a set of intra and extra - hospital actions that are performed by a health team, which has the active participation of a particular community. For this reason, this discipline is linked to social medicine and public health.

The author Carlos Vidal, in his work Community Medicine: New Approach to Medicine (nd), stated that this branch of medicine is an innovative concept, since its new parameters seek to transform the classic structures of the current health system.

Community medicine is a set of intra and extra-hospital actions that are carried out within a society with the aim of achieving collective well-being. Source: pixabay.com

This means that community medicine advocates for public health and preventive medicine, contrary to the more traditional methods, which are focused on a curative rather than preventive clinical medicine.

From the end of the 19th century to the present day, medicine and technology have produced very important advances that have modified the approach to health problems. This has contributed to the introduction of new epistemological proposals, aimed at achieving the collective good and the effective development of societies.

Consequently, community medicine is a branch of health that is closely related to the notions of progress, since it is interested in problems related to the health of peoples. Furthermore, this discipline symbolizes a bridge between office medicine - that is, clinic or hospital medicine - and the services that are offered by collective health agencies.

History

- Medicine and its relationship with society

The author Carlos Vidal proposes four successive stages in terms of innovative processes within medicine and their relationship with the social sphere:

Traditional stage (1850-early 20th century)

At this historical moment, the thematic nucleus was essentially constituted by bacteriological epidemiology and environmental sanitation. Due to this, most of the authors establish that interest in health and public hygiene begins from this stage.

Incorporative stage (from World War II)

In this phase, preventive medicine began to be considered, which allowed the incorporation of certain public health services into the traditional nucleus, such as programs to prevent venereal diseases or tuberculosis, among others.

Comprehensive stage (1930)

Starting in 1930, the term "social medicine" began to be used, characterized by the conceptualization of the disease as a "mass phenomenon", with biosocial influences. In the comprehensive stage, the idea begins to arise that man falls ill not only from his soma (body), but also from his psyche (mind) and his society.

Transcendent participatory stage

In this phase, the man - together with the community in which he lives - went from being an object to a subject in health actions, since he began to participate in the search for solutions to his own ailments.

Likewise, the health professional stopped observing the problem or condition from the outside and began to join the community in order to find solutions.

This also implied that staff should not perceive the disease as an isolated phenomenon, but should approach it from a much broader context, taking into account fundamental structural problems. In this way, a structuralist conceptualization of health began, detaching itself from the functionalist vision.

- Community medicine as an integrated medicine

Some authors affirm that community medicine is part of integrated medicine, since the latter considers man as a being of three dimensions - physical, psychic and social - which requires interaction with his environment. Therefore, man acts following the global context of the human being, where the health-disease phenomenon is addressed.

All preventive measures for diseases, together with the promotion and rehabilitation of health carried out by a medical team, can be considered as integrated health actions.

From this perspective, the conception that integrates the curative and preventive aspects with a team of professionals and health assistants emerged, where each one must fulfill a specific role to achieve collective well-being.

What does community medicine study? (object of study)

The main objective of community medicine is to preserve the health of a certain community, so it distances itself from an individual perspective and introduces a focus on the collective.

Consequently, this discipline studies the illnesses and illnesses of patients from a community perspective, perceiving man as a social entity that needs to interact with others.

Similarly, community medicine offers a series of public services that are developed by health professionals in order to achieve the well-being of a society. For this, medical personnel must interact directly with patients, participating actively within the community.

Methodology

Community medicine, like all science, must apply the scientific method in order to develop successfully. Therefore, it is based on observation and hypotheses that seek to promote an improvement in collective health.

However, this discipline not only stops at the clinical and more theoretical aspect of medicine, but also uses knowledge belonging to the social sciences. For example, community medicine must carry out the following actions in order to achieve the collective good:

- Know the aspects of the community where you are working, taking into account their expectations and needs.

- Make contact with the institutions and the community to motivate them to participate in the common welfare.

- Form local teams of auxiliaries and doctors that can be incorporated into the community.

- Develop action plans that allow them to achieve the common goal, whether it is eradicating a certain disease or promoting proper sexual health, among others.

Community medicine should form local teams of auxiliaries and doctors. Source: pixabay.com

Main concepts

Social and community participation

One of the main concepts used by this discipline is that of community participation, which consists of carrying out professional, family and individual actions within the community with the aim of promoting good health, preventing diseases and stopping their progress.

Public health

This concept is closely linked to community medicine and can be defined as a science in charge of protecting and improving the health of human populations. Therefore, its objective is to improve collective health through disease control and prevention.

References

1. Abramson, J. (1974) Survey methods in community medicine. Retrieved on October 7, 2019 from Cabdirect: cabdirect.org
2. Breilh, J. (1978) Community medicine, a new medical police? Retrieved on October 7, 2019 from UASB digital: repository.uasb.edu.ec
3. Fernández, A. (2002) Family and community medicine: a University subject. Retrieved on October 7, 2019 from Scielo: scielo.isciii.es
4. Kleinman, L. (2012) The revelance of social science for medicine. Retrieved on October 7, 2019 from Google books: books.google.com
5. Leavell, H. (1958) Preventive medicine for the doctor in his community. Retrieved on October 7, 2019 from Cabdirect: cabdirect.org
6. Lowe, C. (1966) An introduction to social medicine. Retrieved on October 7, 2019 from Google books: books.google.com
7. Paim, J. (1976) Community medicine: introduction to a critical analysis. Retrieved on October 7, 2019 from Scielo: sskip.org
8. Vidal, C. (sf) Community medicine: a new approach to medicine. Retrieved on October 7, 2019 from Library paho: hist.library.paho.org