Pathways to health: a framework for health-focused research and practice

Abstract

Public health research and practice is faced with three problems: 1) a focus on disease instead of health, 2) consideration of risk factor/disease relationships one at a time, and 3) attention to individuals with limited regard for the communities in which they live. We propose a framework for health-focused research and practice. This framework encompasses individual and community pathways to health while incorporating the dynamics of context and overall population vulnerability and resilience. Individual pathways to health may differ, but commonalities will exist. By understanding these commonalities, communities can work to support health-promoting pathways in addition to removing barriers. The perspective afforded by viewing health as a dynamic process instead of as a collection of risk factors and diseases expands the number of approaches to improving health globally. Using this approach, multidisciplinary research teams working with active community participants have the potential to reshape health and intervention sciences.

Figure 1

A conceptual framework for health. Context: External physical, societal environment. Inputs: External stimuli that can enter the body. Filter: Affects what enters the body. Balances: Internal facets of our lives. Affected by life contexts, inputs, history, biology. Weights: Effects of positive and negative inputs. Tip the internal balances. Dynamic: shifting, growing or lessening over time. Fulcrum: Susceptibility or resilience of a balance to weights. Dynamic: shifting over time.