Humans have always strived for a long, healthy life, so they continuously try to understand what are the factors that make them fit. Healthy People 2020 addressed this issue by analyzing the relationship between the health condition and factors that may affect it. They developed several categories of health determinants to systematize the research and present the data to the general public.
Categories of Health Determinants
Determinants of health are “the range of personal, social, economic, and environmental factors that influence health status” (Determinants of Health, para. 1). Their categories are social factors, biology and genetics, health services, policymaking, and individual behavior, which, however, should not be analyzed separately. Health is determined by their interrelationships, so effective researches usually analyze a few or all of these categories to present a global picture of what affects human health.
Health Services
Many people believe that “health care access and financing contribute to overall health” of people of all ages (Adler, Glymour, & Fielding., 2016, p. 1642). Chances are that a baby in a family with access to high-end health services will have a healthy childhood, while a poor child will probably be at risk of inability to get preventive services and vaccination. If an adolescent can afford proper health maintenance, he/she is prone to be healthier than his/her peer lacking its availability. An adult with disabilities will have a much more complicated life if he/she cannot provide himself/herself with appropriate health maintenance since disability requires additional care. Similarly, if a frail elderly person’s health needs are not met, the chances are that his/her life expectancy will be lower than that of a person with access to high-end health maintenance.
Summing up, determinants of health help people understand what aspects of their life to improve to be healthy. All the categories should be addressed together since they reinforce each other and affect the health condition of a person from different perspectives. One of the most crucial determinants, however, is health services, since they directly affect human health from very childhood to old age.
References
Adler, N. E., Glymour, M. M., & Fielding, J. (2016). Addressing social determinants of health and health inequalities. JAMA, 316(16), 1641-1642. doi:10.1001/jama.2016.14058
Determinants of Health. (n.d.) Web.