Health as a Means, Not an End: A Public Health of Consequence, May 2019

Health is a means, not an end. In some respects, such a statement may be at odds with a health journal read by professionals who commit their time to studying or working on how best to promote health. It is not surprising if we mistake our goal, health, as the end ofour effort. But, we argue, health should not be the end at all. Health should be the means through which all persons can live full and rich lives. By way of analogy, although we may spend time making sure that our car works, we do so to get us from point A to point B. Our car is the means, the journey and the destination themselves being the end. Put a bit more eloquently, the 1946 preamble to the World Health Organization constitution recognizes health as "a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. "1(p981) Appreciating health as a state of well-being means that we value its role in paving the way to living life as we wish, without encumbrance.