Relationships matter in population health

Abstract

This column notes that population health approaches have largely focused on the physical body outcomes and metrics, on disease registries, and on insurance claim information rather than measures that apply to whole person wellness (an integration of physical, mental, and spiritual health). There has been significant progress in recognizing that people's health is influenced by the context and systems in which they live. Parsing out the influence of context (social and behavioral determinants of health) and predominant physical disease processes is counter to the principles of systems thinking. It is only through examining and understanding the relationships between social and behavioral determinants of health, mental health, and physical health as three parts of a whole that meaningful gains might be achieved on an individual level as well as the population level. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).