Understanding the Concept of Health and Well-Being
Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not only the absence of disease or infirmity. The World Health Organisation defines it as “the highest possible level of health and well-being that a person can achieve”.
A key challenge in global health is to ensure that individuals have access to the resources they need to live healthy, active lives. This requires a broad range of interventions in education, policymaking and service delivery across multiple sectors and cultures.
The concept of health is not always clear and can be difficult to define, but understanding how it is viewed by different people could offer valuable insight into how we might approach the concept in research and practice.
Individual perceptions of health and illness are influenced by gender, age and background factors and can have significant effects on a person’s behaviour towards their own health and wellbeing. There are also important differences between people’s experiences of health and their experiences of illness, which make them difficult to study.
It is therefore essential that we understand what people themselves consider to be the most important issues regarding their health and wellness. This is particularly important for professionals who need to work with a wide range of people in different settings and across the digital realm.
Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not only the absence of disease or infirmity. The World Health Organisation defines it as “the highest possible level of health and well-being that a person can achieve”. A key challenge in global health is to ensure that individuals have access to the resources they need to live healthy, active lives. This requires a broad range of interventions in education, policymaking and service delivery across multiple sectors and cultures. The concept of health is not always clear and can be difficult to define, but understanding how it is viewed by different people could offer valuable insight into how we might approach the concept in research and practice. Individual perceptions of health and illness are influenced by gender, age and background factors and can have significant effects on a person’s behaviour towards their own health and wellbeing. There are also important differences between people’s experiences of health and their experiences of illness, which make them difficult to study. It is therefore essential that we understand what people themselves consider to be the most important issues regarding their health and wellness. This is particularly important for professionals who need to work with a wide range of people in different settings and across the digital realm.