Health is not easy to define. One fairly standard definition, from the World Health Organisation is as follows:
“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
A broader, potentially more useful, definition of ‘wellbeing’ comes from and consists of 9 dimensions within the 3 domains of being, belonging and becoming:
|– physical||Physical functioning and feeling|
|– psychological||Mental functioning and feeling and general mental wellbeing|
|– spiritual||Sense of connection to the universe.|
|– personal growth||Development of skills, knowledge, attitudes, belief, value, sense of identity.|
|– leisure||Development of experiences related to enjoyable activities, usually not formal work.|
|– practical||Development of practical skills etc., which may relate to work of various kinds and employability.|
|– social||Immediate close relationships with family, friends and other peers.|
|– community||Wider relationships with a geographical or other community (which might also relate to sense of identity or spiritual aspects).|
|– ecological||Wider relationship the natural environment, globally and individual and societal relations with it.|
Source: People-Centred Health Promotion, by John Raeburn & Irving Rootman
Health can be seen as encompassing a spectrum of prevention, with factors influencing health often being categorised as:
‘Determinants of Health’ / Life Circumstances – related to housing, education, employment, income, social support etc. This can be paraphrased as:
“Somewhere to be. Somewhere to go. Something to do (not drugs). Someone to talk to. Someone to trust and be trusted by. Someone to respect and be respected by.”
- Behavioural Risk Factors (e.g. tobacco use, alcohol use, diet and nutrition, physical activity).
- Clinical Risk Factors (e.g. obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol).
- Other individual, more attribute based characteristics may include aspects of Mental Wellbeing (self-esteem, competence, autonomy, relatedness, resilience, adaptability … Ageing Well , spirituality … Spirituality and Health.
Disease/ Long Term Conditions – cardiovascular disease, cancer, mental health problems, etc., and their impact on individual functioning and emotions.
Life course approach
One way of considering the health of the population is to break it down into different age groups, and the transition between these. These groupings tend not to be rigidly defined at times, it’s just a guideline.
|0 – 5 years||Early years|
|5 – 16 years||Children|
|16 – 24 years||Young people|
|24 – 50 years||Adults|
|50 – 75 years and upwards||Older people|
Although the needs, issues and attributes of individuals do vary between age groups, there are areas that are common to all, relating to the framework of being, belonging and becoming.
See paper on healthy ageing:
Health improvement aims to identify areas for improvement in each of the above, understanding that they are inter-connected. These web pages aim to provide an overview of these factors in the population of Forth Valley, and what we are doing to address them.
For further information on health in Forth Valley see the Director of Public Health’s annual report.
For further information relating to the health of the population of Scotland (including Forth Valley), see the Scottish Public Health Observatory (ScotPHO) website.
This has sections on Behaviour, Clinical Risk Factors, Life Circumstances, Population Groups, Comparative Health, Population Dynamics, Health, Wellbeing & Disease. The website also holds the 2010 Community Health Profiles.