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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
Health

In 1948, the World Health Organisation defined health as ?a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.? ...
 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
Medicine

Medicine is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
 and public health
Public health

Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals." It is concerned with threats to the overall health of a community based on population health analysis....
 by addressing a broad range of factors that impact health on a population-level, such as environment, social structure, resource distribution, etc.






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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
Health

In 1948, the World Health Organisation defined health as ?a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.? ...
 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
Medicine

Medicine is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
 and public health
Public health

Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals." It is concerned with threats to the overall health of a community based on population health analysis....
 by addressing a broad range of factors that impact health on a population-level, such as environment, social structure, resource distribution, etc. An important theme in population health is importance of social determinants of health
Social determinants of health

Social determinants of health are the economic and social conditions under which people live which determine their health. Virtually all major diseases are primarily determined by a network of interacting exposures that increase or decrease the risk for the disease....
 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".

Inequality and Mortality in Metro Us

The role of economic inequality


Recently, there has been increasing interest from epidemiologists
Epidemiology

Epidemiology is the study of factors affecting the health and illness of populations, and serves as the foundation and logic of interventions made in the interest of public health and preventive medicine....
 on the subject of economic inequality
Economic inequality

Economic inequality refers to disparities in the distribution of economic assets and income. The term typically refers to inequality among individuals and groups within a society, but can also refer to international inequality....
 and its relation to the health of populations. There is a very robust correlation between socioeconomic status
Social status

In sociology or anthropology, social status is the honor or prestige attached to one's position in society . The stratification system, which is the system of distributing rewards to the members of society, determines social status....
 and health. This correlation suggests that it is not only the poor who tend to be sick when everyone else is healthy, but that there is a continual gradient, from the top to the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, relating status to health. This phenomenon is often called the "SES Gradient". Lower socioeconomic status has been linked to chronic stress
Stress (medicine)

Stress is a biological term which refers to the consequences of the failure of a human or animal body to respond appropriately to emotional or body threats to the organism, whether actual or imagined....
, heart disease
Heart disease

Heart disease is an umbrella term for a variety for different diseases affecting the heart. As of 2007, it is the leading cause of death in the United States, England, Canada and Wales, killing one person every 34 seconds in the United States alone....
, ulcers
Peptic ulcer

A peptic ulcer, also known as ulcus pepticum, PUD or peptic ulcer disease, is an ulcer of an area of the gastrointestinal tract that is usually acidic and thus extremely painful....
, type 2 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis
Rheumatoid arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic, systemic disease inflammation that may affect many tissues and organs, but principally attacks the joints producing a inflammatory synovitis that often progresses to destruction of the articular cartilage and ankylosis of the joints....
, certain types of cancer
Cancer

Cancer is a class of diseases in which a group of cell display uncontrolled growth , invasion , and sometimes metastasis . These three malignant properties of cancers differentiate them from benign tumors, which are self-limited, do not invade or metastasize....
, and premature aging.

Despite the reality of the SES Gradient, there is debate as to its cause. A number of researchers (A. Leigh, C. Jencks, A. Clarkwest - see also Russell Sage working papers) see a definite link between economic status and mortality due to the greater economic resources of the better-off, but they find little correlation due to social status
Social status

In sociology or anthropology, social status is the honor or prestige attached to one's position in society . The stratification system, which is the system of distributing rewards to the members of society, determines social status....
 differences.

Other researchers such as Richard Wilkinson
Richard Wilkinson

Richard Wilkinson may refer to:* Richard Wilkinson , researcher in the field of public health* Richard Norton Wilkinson , judge and political figure in Upper Canada...
, J. Lynch , and G.A. Kaplan have found that socioeconomic status strongly affects health even when controlling for economic resources and access to health care. Most famous for linking social status with health are the Whitehall studies
Whitehall Study

The original Whitehall Study investigated social determinants of health, specifically the cardiovascular disease epidemiology and mortality rates among United Kingdom male civil servants between the ages of 20 and 64....
 - a series of studies conducted on civil servants in London
London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
. The studies found that, despite the fact that all civil servants in England have the same access to health care, there was a strong correlation between social status and health. The studies found that this relationship stayed strong even when controlling for health-affecting habits such as exercise, smoking
Tobacco smoking

Tobacco smoking is the inhalation of smoke from burned dried or cured leaves of the tobacco plant, most often in the form of a cigarette. People may smoke casually for pleasure, habitually to satisfy an addiction to the nicotine present in tobacco and to the act of smoking, or in response to social pressure....
 and drinking
Alcoholic beverage

An alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol . Alcoholic beverages are divided into three general classes: beers, wines, and distilled beverage....
. Furthermore, it has been noted that no amount of medical attention will help decrease the likelihood of someone getting type 1 diabetes or rheumatoid arthritis
Rheumatoid arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic, systemic disease inflammation that may affect many tissues and organs, but principally attacks the joints producing a inflammatory synovitis that often progresses to destruction of the articular cartilage and ankylosis of the joints....
 - yet both are more common among populations with lower socioeconomic status. Lastly, it has been found that amongst the wealthiest quarter of countries on earth (a set stretching from Luxembourg
Luxembourg

Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a small landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany....
 to Slovakia
Slovakia

Slovakia . It was amended in September 1998 to allow direct election of the president and again in February 2001 due to EU admission requirements....
) there is no relation between a country's wealth and general population health - suggesting that past a certain level, absolute levels of wealth have little impact on population health, but relative levels within a country do.

The concept of psychosocial stress attempts to explain how psychosocial phenomenon such as status
Social status

In sociology or anthropology, social status is the honor or prestige attached to one's position in society . The stratification system, which is the system of distributing rewards to the members of society, determines social status....
 and social stratification
Social stratification

In sociology and anthropology, social stratification is the hierarchy arrangement of social classes, castes and strata within a society. While these hierarchies are not universal to all societies, they are the norm among state-level cultures ....
 can lead to the many diseases associated with the SES Gradient. Higher levels of economic inequality tend to intensify social hierarchies and generally degrades the quality of social relations - leading to greater levels of stress
Stress (medicine)

Stress is a biological term which refers to the consequences of the failure of a human or animal body to respond appropriately to emotional or body threats to the organism, whether actual or imagined....
 and stress related diseases. Richard Wilkinson found this to be true not only for the poorest members of society, but also for the wealthiest. Economic inequality is bad for everyone's health.

Inequality does not only affect the health of human populations. David H. Abbott at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center found that among many primate species, less egalitarian social structures correlated with higher levels of stress hormones among socially subordinate individuals. Research by Robert Sapolsky
Robert Sapolsky

Robert Maurice Sapolsky is an American scientist and author. He is currently professor of Biological Sciences, and Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, and by courtesy, Neurosurgery, at Stanford University....
 of Stanford University
Stanford University

Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private university research university located in Stanford, California, California, United States....
 provides similar findings.

The importance of family planning programs

Family planning
Family planning

Family planning is people Planning when to have children, and the use of birth control and other techniques to implement such plans. Other techniques commonly used include sex education, prevention and management of sexually transmitted disease, pre-conception counseling and pregnancy#management , and infertility....
 programs (including contraceptives
Birth control

Birth control, sometimes synonymous with contraception, is a regimen of one or more actions, devices, or medications followed in order to deliberately prevent or reduce the likelihood of pregnancy or childbirth....
) play a major role in population health. For example, the United States Agency for International Development
United States Agency for International Development

The United States Agency for International Development is the Federal government of the United States organization responsible for most non-military aid foreign aid....
 lists as benefits of its international family planning program:
  • "Protecting the health of women by reducing high-risk pregnancies"
  • "Protecting the health of children by allowing sufficient time between pregnancies"
  • "Fighting HIV/AIDS through providing information, counseling, and access to male and female condoms"
  • "Reducing abortions"
  • "Supporting women's rights and opportunities for education, employment, and full participation in society"
  • "Protecting the environment by stabilizing population growth"


Population health management (PHM)

One method to improve population health is population health management (PHM), which has been defined as “the technical field of endeavor which utilizes a variety of individual, organizational and cultural interventions to help improve the morbidity patterns (i.e., the illness and injury burden) and the health care use behavior of defined populations”. PHM is distinguished from disease management
Disease management (health)

Disease management is defined as "a system of coordinated health care interventions and communications for populations with conditions in which patient self-care efforts are significant." It is the process of reducing healthcare costs and/or improving quality of life for individuals by preventing or minimizing the effects of a disease, usuall...
 by including more chronic conditions and diseases, by use of "a single point of contact and coordination," and by "predictive modeling across multiple clinical conditions". PHM is considered broader than disease management in that it also includes "intensive care management for individuals at the highest level of risk" and "personal health management... for those at lower levels of predicted health risk.". Many PHM-related articles are published in Population Health Management, the official journal of DMAA: The Care Continuum Alliance
DMAA: The Care Continuum Alliance

DMAA: The Care Continuum Alliance is an industry trade group of corporations and individuals that "promotes the role of population health improvement in raising the quality of care, improving health outcomes and reducing preventable health care costs for individuals with Chronic conditions and those at risk for developing chronic conditions"...
.

See also

  • Auxology
    Auxology

    Auxology, sometimes called Auxanology , is a meta-term covering the study of all aspects of human physical human development ; though it is also a fundamental of biology, generally....
  • Economic inequality
    Economic inequality

    Economic inequality refers to disparities in the distribution of economic assets and income. The term typically refers to inequality among individuals and groups within a society, but can also refer to international inequality....
  • Health disparities
    Health disparities

    Health disparities refer to gaps in the quality of health and health care across Race , ethnic groups, and socioeconomic groups. The Health Resources and Services Administration defines health disparities as "population-specific differences in the presence of disease, health outcomes, or access to health care."...
  • Health Impact Assessment
    Health Impact Assessment

    Health Impact Assessment is defined as "a combination of procedures, methods and tools bywhich a policy, program or project may be judged as to its potential effects on the...
  • List of countries by income equality
    List of countries by income equality

    This is a list of countries or dependencies by income inequality metrics, including Gini coefficients, according to the United Nations and the Central Intelligence Agency ....
  • Population Health Forum
    Population Health Forum

    The Population Health Forum is a group based at University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, and composed of academics, citizens, students, and activists from around North America....
  • Social determinants of health
    Social determinants of health

    Social determinants of health are the economic and social conditions under which people live which determine their health. Virtually all major diseases are primarily determined by a network of interacting exposures that increase or decrease the risk for the disease....


External links

  • MS and PhD Graduate Programs in Population Health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • Population Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • Institute of Population Health at the University of Ottawa, Canada
  • Population Based Health intervention analysis, business case evaluations, epidemiology
  • Population and Health Graduate Program in the Dept of Population and Family Health Sciences at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
  • Population Health Forum
    Population Health Forum

    The Population Health Forum is a group based at University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, and composed of academics, citizens, students, and activists from around North America....
     
  • Ph.D. in Population Health Program at the University of Ottawa, Canada