Health, Illness and Wellbeing:: Perspectives and Social Determinants.

Health, Illness and Wellbeing: Perspectives and Social Determinants introduces students to the important ideas that underlie the field of public health today. Written for beginning students, it provides an overview of the forces and trends that combine to shape the health of individuals, communities, and populations, within a conceptual framework of determinants of health.

The book examines the biological, environmental, social, cultural and economic determinants of health, within the context of their causes and interrelationships. It is structured to enable students to understand and reflect upon health; how it is informed by biological, environmental, and social factors that affect whole populations. More advanced sections of the book focus on the social, cultural and economic determinants of health to show the ways in which the experience of health is influenced by the characteristics of the society in which people live.

Through its perspective of considering the causes of health, rather than simply the effects of health status in society, the book provides students with the basis for a career in any of the health sciences where insight into the meaning of health will allow for the development of effective practice and greater sensitivity to the needs of the community.