Synopsis

What factors influence our health? A lot of attention is focused on people's behaviour - their decisions to smoke, drink, over-eat and so on - with strong messages about the changes needed to become healthier. But people's behaviour is influenced by circumstances and events, friends and family, education, job prospects, income, housing and environment. In this unit we look at how these factors, these wider social determinants, work together to influence our health for good or ill.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Learning outcomes
1 Exploring the factors that influence health
2 Age, sex and hereditary factors
2.1 Genetics, health and the human genome
2.2 Sex, gender and health
2.3 Age and the lifecourse: healthy ageing
3 Individual lifestyle factors
4 Social and community influences
5 Living and working conditions
6 General social and environmental conditions
7 Investigating health inequalities
Conclusion
Next Steps
References
Acknowledgements

 

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