Theoretical and Practical Issues in the Defi nition of Health: Insights from Aboriginal

This paper discusses attempts to defi ne health within a public policy arena and practical and conceptual diffi culties that arise. An Aus-tralian Aboriginal defi nition of health is examined. Although there are certain diffi culties of translation, this defi nition is prominent in current Australian health policy and discourse about health. The defi nition can be seen as broadly holistic in comparison to other holistic defi nitions such as that of the World Health Organization. The nature of this holism and its grounding within the context of Aboriginal Australia is discussed. In particular, its implications for the phenomenon of medicalization, which may be associated with a holistic notion of health, is critically explored, as is the link of no-tions of health to culture and the question of the possibility of a universal defi nition of health. The question of to what extent a defi-nition of health is inspirational or operational is also raised