SALUTOGENESIS VS PATHOGENESIS - A NEW APP ROACH TO AN OLD WISDOM

The so called ''potentially lost life years'' of a population are most ly due to unfavourable lifestyle and lack of health orientation. This could be shown e.g. in view of job-stressors and their consequences fo r cardio-vascular disease. As important the single risk factor may be, as limited is their impact when we look at the amount of explained va riance, mostly only around 10%. On the other hand each examined popula tion includes a larger amount of individuals who will not fall ill in spite of identical stressors as those getting sick. This ability to re sist, based on special interior and exterior resources, is now called salutogenesis. It stands opposite to the term pathogenesis. More recen t research in that area examines favourable exterior resources such as structures in ''social support'', favourable conditions at the work-p lace, in the family and so on. Other more personality oriented abiliti es include optimism, hardiness, etc. The founder of the theory on salu togenesis, AARON ANTONOVSKY, describes a concept of ''sense of coheren ce'' including (1.) comprehensibility, (2.) manageability, (3.) meanin gfulness. More recent therapeutic concepts are based on these assumpti ons and have proved to be successful.