Illustrative life expectancy curve from 1900 to 2020 showing how medical technologies of the biomedical approach lifted health status, with a layer marking where the social model acts
Most medical technology only switches on once you are already sick
The biomedical approach is doctors, hospitals, drugs and machines: diagnose the disease, treat the person, cure or manage it. Every leap in medical technology last century bent the life expectancy curve upward, yet nearly all of them act after someone is already unwell, and even vaccination is a medical intervention rather than a change to living conditions. Switch the technologies on one at a time and move through the century; watch how much of the climb comes from treatment and how much was already happening underneath.
Life expectancy
5/5 technologies
Illustrative model, not measured data. Switch technologies on or off, then move the year. Watch where the solid curve leaves the dashed one.
2020 · 83 yrs · tech +17.0
With technology switched onLiving conditions only1900 level
Medical technologies in the model
Social model
Year2020
19001930196019902020
Model life expectancy
83 yrs
Added by technology
+17.0 yrs
Compare the two approaches
Know This
The biomedical approach treats disease once it appears, so improvements in medical technology raise health status after illness while the social model acts upstream.