Hi Caraan I would like to comment that According to WHO Many factors combine together to affect the health of individuals and communities. Whether people are healthy or not, is determined by their circumstances and environment. To a large extent, factors such as where we live, the state of our environment, genetics, our income and education level, and our relationships with friends and family all have considerable impacts on health, whereas the more commonly considered factors such as access and use of health care services often have less of an impact.

The determinants of health include:

- The social and economic environment,

- The physical environment,

- And the person’s individual characteristics and behaviors.

The context of people’s lives determine their health, and so blaming individuals for having poor health or crediting them for good health is inappropriate. Individuals are unlikely to be able to directly control many of the determinants of health. These determinants—or things that make people healthy or not—include the above factors, and many others:

- Income and social status - higher income and social status are linked to better health. The greater the gap between the richest and poorest people, the greater the differences in health.

- Education – low education levels are linked with poor health, more stress and lower self-confidence.

- Physical environment – safe water and clean air, healthy workplaces, safe houses, communities and roads all contribute to good health. Employment and working conditions – people in employment are healthier, particularly those who have more control over their working conditions .

- Social support networks – greater support from families, friends and communities is linked to better health. Culture - customs and traditions, and the beliefs of the family and community all affect health.

- Genetics - inheritance plays a part in determining lifespan, healthiness and the likelihood of developing certain illnesses. Personal behaviour and coping skills – balanced eating, keeping active, smoking, drinking, and how we deal with life’s stresses and challenges all affect health.

- Health services - access and use of services that prevent and treat disease influences health

- Gender - Men and women suffer from different types of diseases at different ages.

Evidence base of health determinants:

An evidence base about the impact that projects, programmes and policies have had on health is required to carry out HIA. The best available evidence is used within the appraisal stage of HIA to determine what impacts may occur (both positive and negative), the size of the impact (if possible) and the distribution of that impact in different population groups. Providing a comprehensive review of the evidence base is not simple. It needs to draw on the best available evidence – that from reviews and research papers, and including qualitative and quantitative evidence. This information must be supplemented with local and expert knowledge, policy information, and proposal specific information. However, there are examples where the best available evidence has been documented, and in some cases summarised. These are presented below:

- Transport

- Food and Agriculture

- Housing

- Waste

- Energy

- Industry

- Urbanization

- Water

- Radiation

- Nutrition and health

The more you Focus on Improvement of Set Health Determinants by WHO the more you can improve health and development of a community.

Regards

Dear R.A Tan Caraan

Please see the following links and PDF attachments.

http://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ss.20180702.12.pdf

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/23226/0000159.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Article [Relations between health and development]

Article Health as an economic engine: Evidence for the importance of...

https://www.academia.edu/1588300/THE_ROLE_OF_HEALTH_IN_ECONOMIC_GROWTH_AND_DEVELOPMENT

Good luck!

Among the most clear connections between health and development come from the literature on social determinants of health, health disparities and Health in All Policies. In layperson's language, population health is affected by many social, economic, cultural, and infrastructural factors. A clear example of development and health connection: The development sector is often profit-driven and is impacted by the policies that benefit rich and elite of the society. Best fitness facilities and farmers' markets are placed by the community planners in places with people who can afford to pay expensive foods, and fitness facilities. Walk trails are built in the influential neighborhoods. Consequently, poor and underserved enclaves in the communities who need planners to build walk trails and organize affordable farmer's markets do not get those facilities in their neighbor hoods. Read the planning and flight of capital argument in our 2015 article below. Explanations of connections between health and development are included in our 2018 article.

Article Local Health Departments' Engagement in Addressing Health Di...

Article Local Health Departments’ Activities to Address Health Dispa...

Hello R.A Tan Chops

I'm really happy to see this question and I think you got some great response so far which I echo. Imran gave an economic development perspective that health is improving human capital (along with education) and once the labor force is healthy, you will have a productive labor force. However, the downside with this arugment is that then health policies tend to focus only on occupational health and not primary health care. So, think of mining countries in African and Latin America, they tend to provide limited health services to local employees to ensure they are healthy enough to work. Women, children, and elderly would be left out of this model. In fact, the World Bank's DALYs were bias towards working age men and left out health issues that affected other demographics.

Some other authors discuss the social determinants of health, which is really important because we need to think outside the biomedical box. Health isn't just about access to vaccines and pills, its clean water, clean air, green space for exercise or farming, sanitation, etc...The WHO has a models called "Whole of Government" and "Whole of Society" approach which indicates that every sector of government has an impact on health. So education (which can reduce teen pregnancy and STDs), water and sanitation (which can reduce water born illness), trade (which can make drugs more or less expensive) interior and urban departments (which can affect quality of housing and obesity rates) etc....People living in poverty unfortunately, are negatively impact on all sides, low education, poor infrastructure, less access to nutritious food or green space...which can all impact health of a community. I think if you google "social determinants of health" that will help you to research more into this issue. And if you're interested, "political determinants of health" and "political economy of health"

Yes Sabine, I am really amazed on this discussion's responses. The public health is really a great deal for people who have great minds and empathic hearts for social justice and equity. Thanks everyone for the responses and participation!