Generally, the context in which an individual lives is of great importance for both his health status and quality of their life. It is increasingly recognized that health is maintained and improved not only through the advancement and application of health science, but also through the efforts and intelligent lifestyle choices of the individual and society. According to the World Health Organization, the main determinants of health include the social and economic environment, the physical environment, and the person's individual characteristics and behaviors.[10]
More specifically, key factors that have been found to influence whether people are healthy or unhealthy include the following:[10][11][12]
Income and social status
Social support networks
Education and literacy
Employment/working conditions
Social environments
Physical environments
Personal health practices and coping skills
Healthy child development
Biology and genetics
Health care services
Gender
Culture
Donald Henderson as part of the CDC's smallpox eradication team in 1966.
An increasing number of studies and reports from different organizations and contexts examine the linkages between health and different factors, including lifestyles, environments, health care organization, and health policy – such as the 1974 Lalonde report from Canada;[12] the Alameda County Study in California;[13] and the series of World Health Reports of the World Health Organization, which focuses on global health issues including access to health care and improving public health outcomes, especially in developing countries.[14]
The concept of the "health field," as distinct from medical care, emerged from the Lalonde report from Canada. The report identified three interdependent fields as key determinants of an individual's health. These are:[12]
Lifestyle: the aggregation of personal decisions (i.e., over which the individual has control) that can be said to contribute to, or cause, illness or death;
Environmental: all matters related to health external to the human body and over which the individual has little or no control;
Biomedical: all aspects of health, physical and mental, developed within the human body as influenced by genetic make-up.
