Social Health, Islamic System, and the National Media

Social health, one of the significant aspects of health, which is considered by the World Health Organization, has no long history in Iran's social literature, and thus, no precise definition of it has been offered. One group has defined social health as one aspect of individual health along with physical and mental health; another group has defined it as health-creating social conditions, and a third one has defined it as society's health or healthy society. The findings of this research indicate that taking into consideration the criticism addressed to the first two impressions, some Iranian scholars have conceptualized social health as a characteristic of society that is equivalent to "a healthy society." In Iran's constitution and other high level documents belonging to the Islamic Republic of Iran, a lot of attention has been paid to the issues of healthy society, absence of poverty, inequality, violence, unemployment, and illiteracy, existence of public insurance and a comprehensive health system, and so on. Iran's sociocultural conditions and the influence of social health on its social and cultural policies elucidate the necessity of considering this issue in the National Media.