False Hopes: Why America’s Quest for Perfect Health is a Recipe for Failure

Callahan, Daniel; Brickner, Philip W.

doi:10.1891/1521-0987.1.1.77

Cited by 66 publications

(41 citation statements)

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“…Healthcare providers offer finite hope in the face of disease and aging; religious counselors offer an infinite hope amidst the realities of aging and death. 97 For adherents to Western religious traditions, this infinite hope may take the form of belief in a life after death. Such a hope may be interpretable as a symbol of personal integrity that survives the indignities of illness, disability, and dissolution.…”

Section: Ness and Larson Page 11mentioning

confidence: 99%

Religion, Senescence, and Mental Health: The End of Life Is Not the End of Hope

Ness

Larson

2002

The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry

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The authors review epidemiological and survey research relevant to the relationships between religiousness/spirituality and mental health in people at the end of life, with the end of helping psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals dealing with older Americans. They give special attention to well-being, religious coping, cognitive dysfunction, anxiety, depression, and suicide, and consider the extent to which hope is a mediator of the purported salutary effects of religiousness. Studies were selected from the comprehensive and systematic review of 20th-century scientific literature concerning religion and health. Authors also review current studies relevant to religion and end-of-life issues. Religious persons reported generally higher levels of well-being. The review also found fairly consistent inverse associations of religiousness with rates of depression and suicide. There was some negative association between religious participation and cognitive dysfunction, but the association with anxiety was inconsistent, with some studies showing a correlation between higher levels of religion and anxiety. Religion's effects on mental health are generally protective in direction but modest in strength.Public opinion polls suggest that the United States is a very religious nation. The 1999 Gallup Poll reports that 94% of Americans believe in God or a higher power; an almost equal proportion of the population says that religion is very or fairly important in their lives. 1 Less than a majority of these respondents report weekly attendance at religious services, but American rates of religious service attendance are still higher than for almost all other developed countries. 2 Most Americans believe that religion and health are intimately related. A 1996 Time/CNN poll conducted by Yankelovich Partners reports that 77% of respondents believe that God sometimes intervenes to cure people who have serious illnesses. 3 Furthermore, people act upon such beliefs. This same poll reports that 82% of Americans profess belief in the healing power of prayer. Also, research by Eisenberg and colleagues 4 shows that Americans spend billions of dollars annually on "alternative" medical therapies, and many of these therapies have spiritual meanings associated with them. 4,5

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Section: Ness and Larson Page 11mentioning

confidence: 99%

Religion, Senescence, and Mental Health: The End of Life Is Not the End of Hope

Ness

Larson

2002

The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry

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“…As unrealistic as it is as a goal for national health systems, a state of complete well-being does seem to drive personal expectations for health, particularly in higher-income nations with well-developed health care systems. Ethicist Daniel Callahan (Callahan 1998) of the Hastings Center has criticized the U.S. health care system as actually reaching for an implicit goal of providing "all the care we 'want' and 'need,' when we want it!" He argues that fulfilling this expansive expectation is impossibly expensive and that this is a major reason that the U.S. health care system is so much more expensive than those of other nations.…”

Section: Health Idealsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Designing a World-Class Health Care System

F.I.A.¹

2003

North American Actuarial Journal

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Public health systems are finding it increasingly difficult to fund all the health care that their citizens want and need. Fiscal constraint is causing many nations to reconsider the respective roles of their public programs and private health insurance. The author examines the potential for and performance of health systems around the world and the advantages and disadvantages of public and private health financing. This analysis leads to the development of a framework for improvements in today's mix of health care financing and to high-level principles for a better-coordinated relationship between public and private programs. The role of health actuaries in moving toward more effective health systems is then explored.

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“…Nesse contexto, devem ser ressaltados os processos sociais de medicalização da vida operados pelo Complexo Médico-Industrial, que adota uma visão do progresso médico pautada pela concepção da saúde como o principal bem a ser promovido e por uma produção imaginária da saúde perfeita e da imortalidade (Callahan, 1998). Para tanto, utiliza várias estratégias para ampliar as demandas por tecnologias médicas, entre elas a transformação de problemas sociais em doenças, a criação de novas doenças ou a ampliação da definição de doenças já conhecidas para abarcar novos pacientes, e a extensão do uso de determinadas tecnologias para problemas não originalmente incluídos em seu escopo (Camargo Jr., 2003).…”

Section: Introductionunclassified

Justiça social e equidade em saúde: uma abordagem centrada nos funcionamentos

Ribeiro

2015

Saude soc.

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ResumoTrata-se de um ensaio de natureza teórica que objetiva defender uma concepção de justiça social voltada aos funcionamentos dos indivíduos, articulando a discussão da justiça com o debate sobre equidade em saúde. Na introdução, são discutidas as circunstâncias da justiça, abordando a questão da escassez dos recursos no campo da saúde. No primeiro item, analisa-se a noção da equidade em saúde, apresentando os principais enfoques abordados, em particular o conceito de equidade em saúde proposto por Margaret Whitehead, amplamente utilizado na saúde coletiva. No segundo item, apresenta-se, brevemente, a Abordagem das Capacitações desenvolvida por Amartya Sen e Martha Nussbaum, que recuperam a noção aristotélica de funcionamento. Ao final, critica-se essa abordagem e defende-se a Perspectiva dos Funcionamentos (PF), proposta por Maria Clara Dias, aplicada ao campo da saúde. Dessa forma, os concernidos da justiça são sistemas funcionais e o que se quer igualar para propósitos de justiça é a integridade funcional dos seres vivos. São apresentadas algumas vantagens dessa perspectiva, considerada aquela que melhor preenche os requisitos de uma concepção de justiça extensiva a todos no Brasil.

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False Hopes: Why America’s Quest for Perfect Health is a Recipe for Failure

Cited by 66 publications

References 0 publications

Religion, Senescence, and Mental Health: The End of Life Is Not the End of Hope

Religion, Senescence, and Mental Health: The End of Life Is Not the End of Hope

Designing a World-Class Health Care System

Justiça social e equidade em saúde: uma abordagem centrada nos funcionamentos

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