Population health has been defined as “the health outcomes of a group of individuals, including the distribution of such outcomes within the group.” It is an approach to health that aims to improve the health of an entire population. One major step in achieving this aim is to reduce health inequities among population groups. Population health seeks to step beyond the individual-level focus of mainstream medicine and to complement the organized efforts of public health by addressing a broader range of factors that impact health on a population-level, such as environment, social structure, resource distribution, etc. One important theme in population health is the importance of social determinants of health and the relatively minor impact that medicine and healthcare have on improving health overall.
From a population health perspective, health has been defined not simply as a state free from disease but as "the capacity of people to adapt to, respond to, or control life's challenges and changes".
Read more about Population Health: The Role of Economic Inequality, The Importance of Family Planning Programs, Population Health Management (PHM), See Also
Famous quotes containing the words population and/or health:
“In our large cities, the population is godless, materialized,—no bond, no fellow-feeling, no enthusiasm. These are not men, but hungers, thirsts, fevers, and appetites walking. How is it people manage to live on,—so aimless as they are? After their peppercorn aims are gained, it seems as if the lime in their bones alone held them together, and not any worthy purpose.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The philanthropist too often surrounds mankind with the remembrance of his own cast- off griefs as an atmosphere, and calls it sympathy. We should impart our courage, and not our despair, our health and ease, and not our disease, and take care that this does not spread by contagion.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)