What is Whole Person Health?

Whole person health involves considering all parts of the body, not just a single organ or system. And it focuses on restoring health, promoting resilience, and preventing diseases throughout people’s lives, not just treating specific health problems.

But the concept of whole-person health also goes beyond that. Whole person health means looking at health at different levels—individual, family, community, and population—and considering the many interconnected biological, behavioral, social, and environmental factors that influence health. (National Institute of Health)

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Social Determinants of Health - SDOH

Social determinants of health (SDOH) are the conditions in the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks.

SDOH also contribute to wide health disparities and inequities. For example, people who don't have access to grocery stores with healthy foods are less likely to have good nutrition. That raises their risk of health conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and obesity — and even lowers life expectancy relative to people who do have access to healthy foods.

Just promoting healthy choices won't eliminate these and other health disparities. Instead, public health organizations and their partners in sectors like education, transportation, and housing need to take action to improve the conditions in people's environments.

Healthy People 2030 has an increased and overarching focus on SDOH. See the link for more information: https://health.gov/healthypeople/objectives-and-data/social-determinants-health