Category: Health

The state of complete physical, mental and social well-being is health. Not just in the form of disease or infirmity and good health is something we strip to achieve not just individually but also as a community. But if we look around us at our family, friends, and others we know that health is very very variable for example in 2016 the life expectancy of a child born was 53 years in Sierra Leone while in Australia it was 83 years. But even within Australia, the life expectancy of indigenous people is about 10 years lower than non-indigenous people. And even in a specific group of people health can be changed based on a person’s income, level of education, or occupation. So why is health so variable? The factors that influence a person’s health are called determinants of health. These include who they are such as age, sex, and genetic makeup, and what they do as a health behavior such as smoking, physical activity, alcohol use, and diet. Health is also largely influenced by the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age collectively called the social determinants of health. The social determinations of health are shaped by the distribution of money, power, and resources and an international, national, and local level. These can lead to health inequities which are the differences in health between different groups of people that are unfair and avoidable.