Defining Health and Wellness - The Health Of The United States

A primary indicator of the well-being of a nation is the health of its people. Many factors can affect a person's health: heredity, race/ethnicity, gender, income, education, geography, exposure to violent crime, exposure to environmental agents, exposure to infectious diseases, and access to and availability of health care.

Whereas physicians and other health practitioners observe the influences of these factors as they care for individual patients, epidemiologists (public health researchers who study the occurrence of disease in populations) examine the distribution and rates of diseases and injuries in the population. The practitioner and epidemiologist each apply the scientific method to achieve their objectives, but they use it in varying ways. For instance, in the "database" step of the scientific method, the practitioner uses history and physical examination to determine a patient's health; the epidemiologist uses surveillance and description. The practitioner seeks to deliver appropriate treatment to individual patients; the epidemiologist recommends actions to prevent the spread of disease or otherwise improve the health of an entire community or population.

Epidemiologists and other public health professionals assess health by determining the incidence and prevalence rates of disease and disability in a given community. Incidence is a measure of the rate at which people without a disease develop the disease during a specific time period, and it describes the continuing occurrence of disease over time. For example, a researcher might report that men in a given community age sixty-five and older have a 2% incidence of heart disease. Prevalence describes a group or population at a specific point in time. For example, the prevalence of high blood pressure found during screening at a health fair on a specific day might be 22%.

Other measures of the health of a population, such as natality (birth) and mortality (death) rates, are known as vital health statistics. This chapter provides an overview of vital health statistics and the health status of Americans.