Common-Sense Models of Health and Disease

The "biomedical model," which serves as the foundation of contemporary, Western, scientific medicine, has at its core biologic theory, which seeks to explain the causes, pathophysiology, and course of illness.1 It is the logic of this theory that dictates the physician's approach to the diagnosis and treatment of disease.Many middle-class, educated Americans think about illness — its cause and its cure — in ways that are alien to those of their physicians. The views of patients constitute an interconnected set of ideas or principles that help them make sense of disease. These popular models differ from the biomedical model . . .