ABSTRACT
Health is increasingly being regarded as a holistic and socio-cultural phenomenon rather than a purely medical matter. This means that the four roles of health management - prevention, promotion, cure and rehabilitation - have to be integrated both into so-called ‘complementary’ medical procedures and into socio-economic development patterns that place the physical and mental well-being of people as first priority. We have already seen in Chapter 6 how there is a close link between health provision at a community level, better civil and economic rights for women, and a lowering of population growth. In this chapter, rural development in certain areas, notably Central and East Africa and parts of South-east Asia, may be critically influenced by the diminishing number of able-bodied young adults, whose siblings are infected by AIDS and by other debilitating and socially influenced diseases.
