Medical Nemesis and Economic Health,or Economic Nemesis and Medical Health: The Modern Dilemma

Modern analyses of health trends recognize the importance of ‘life style’ or behavioural variables in health. But this has the effect of taking the emphasis off the real socioeconomic determinants of life style in modern society. In the present paper changing health patterns in Australia are examined and some explanations of these changes are considered. It is concluded that ‘life style’ explanations of modern ‘societal’ illness are a ‘cop-out‘. They ignore the deeper economic and social causes of life styles and in particular the dynamic relationship between these and a rapidly expanding growth economy. The question of whether medical health demands economic nemesis under a continuation of the growth system is considered in this light.