1.3: Public Health vs Personal Health

Now that you understand that public health involves making health decisions that affect a population to prevent illness, improve physical well-being, and increase lifespan, let's compare it to personal health. First, note that personal health is entirely about the individual. It encompasses decisions one makes about their health and, ideally, aims for the same outcomes as public health: preventing illness, improving physical well-being, and increasing lifespan. There are currently eight main components of health (Stoewen, 2017):

• Physical Health: health achieved through the physiological well-being of the body's organ systems. 
• Psychological Health: health achieved through mental and emotional stability in challenging situations.
• Social Health: health achieved through well-being through supportive and stimulating social connections. 
• Intellectual Health: health achieved through the use of problem-solving and critical thinking to navigate life's challenges through analysis, evaluation, and decision-making.
• Spiritual Health: health achieved through a belief in a larger life scheme, providing a sense of place and purpose.
• Environmental Health: health achieved through the conditions in which the individual lives, works, and plays. 
• Financial Health: health achieved through making informed financial decisions, setting realistic goals, and planning for short-term and long-term needs. 
• Vocational Health: health achieved through finding meaningful and fulfilling work that aligns with the individual's values and utilizes his/her talents. 

As you noted above, personal health focuses solely on the individual, whereas public health focuses on the population; the view of health is broader. Therefore, with this fundamental difference in mind, the approach is different.  

It is also important to notice that personal health involves healthcare. Although health is often viewed through the lens of healthcare, it is connected to public health, primarily through prevention, population health, and policy.  To clarify, while public health focuses primarily on population-level primary prevention, the healthcare industry meets the needs of individuals and communities for primary, secondary, and tertiary care. Access, cost, and quality of healthcare are all important factors for population health. Public health professionals may work within or adjacent to the medical field, or in policymaking at the local, state, or national level, and should therefore understand the history, current needs, and political climate surrounding healthcare.

Determinants of Health

In public health, the term 'determinants' refers to the underlying factors, or root causes, that contribute to the development of disease.  Unlike contributory causes, determinants delve into factors that shape health over the long term, sometimes years before a disease becomes apparent. The following is a list of seven determinants of health (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, n.d.):

Behavior

This category entails actions that affect disease risk by increasing or decreasing exposure to harmful factors. Some examples of behaviors that affect the development of disease are smoking, consuming excessive alcohol, having unprotected intercourse, and a lack of exercise and a nutritious diet. 

Infection:

This category often refers to infections that cause disease.  The most well-known infectious agent that cause disease is the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) that causes Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), however other examples are to this effect is the the Helicobacter pylori bacteria infection is one cause of stomach ulcer disease, another is Hepatitis C virus which often causes liver disease, and most recently some variant of the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) has been correlated to cause cervical, vaginal, and penile cancer. 

Genetics:

This category encompasses all the genes passed down from parents, including human traits and potential diseases. It is interesting to note that research shows that although genetics contributes to disease, other factors are often influential. For example, if the family has a propensity for diabetes, many times a person can have this in mind and change their lifestyle to include exercise and eating habits that keep diabetes from developing. However, in other cases it is not as preventable, for example, if one of a person's parent has genetic traits that carry Huntington's disease, a person has a 50% chance of developing the disease.  In most cases, symptoms begin in adulthood and can be managed with medication, but the neurological decline is imminent (Mayo Clinic, 2025). 

Geography:

This category plays a significant role in determining the frequency of exposure and, therefore, of developing diseases.  Examples of this include not only infectious diseases such as malaria and Lyme disease, but also environmental factors such as the presence of high levels of radon, which is one cause of lung cancer. In some instances, the geography and environment category may overlap; however, the outcome is the same: disease development. 

Environment:

This category views environmental factors as the underlying cause of disease and can be further subcategorized into the natural and built environments. In natural environments, phenomena such as fires, earthquakes, and flooding can cause diseases. In the built environment, human activities such as industrial production, agriculture, mining, and waste disposal can lead to exposure to toxic substances in the air, water, and soil.  A few examples of toxic environmental actions that can promote disease include pesticide use in farming, factory emissions, and improper waste management, all of which can contaminate food and drinking water with hazardous chemicals. 

Medical Care:

This category focuses on access to medical care, with an emphasis on prevention, which directly affects disease development.  An example of preventive medical care is vaccination. If we look into the controversial topic of COVID-19 vaccination through the lens of public health, it will be noticed that it was mandated that the population be vaccinated with the aim, not only to lessen the degree of virulence of the infection and prevent more deaths, but also to provide herd immunity to those who were unable to be vaccinated. In the end, it saved lives.  Another example of how preventive medical care saves lives is through early detection screenings. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force provides research-based recommendations for medical professionals. The recommendations include screenings that help the population prevent the development of diseases such as cancer and diabetes (U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, n.d.) 

Social: 

This category stems from how people and groups interact within a community. The quality of one's social connections—with family, friends, colleagues, and community—significantly influences overall health and well-being. One example is urban communities, characterized by their fast pace, which show a higher prevalence of stress-related illnesses than the more leisurely rural settings. In contrast, those living in rural communities typically have reduced access to quality healthcare resources, such as hospitals and medical specialists, which are more readily available in urban areas.  Social interaction is critical to well-being, and research shows that both the quantity and the quality matter.  One example of this is that the isolation measures implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic significantly contributed to mental health issues within communities.

Cultural and Religious:

This category encompasses factors shaped by a society's established norms and values, both formally defined and implicitly understood.  It is becoming increasingly clear that cultural and religious factors are determinants of diseases as they sway treatment decisions, thereby affecting disease progression.  Religions hold various stances on health, impacting medical treatment, dietary practices, and substance use. Some prohibit immunizations or physician care, others follow dietary laws like Kosher, and some use substances like peyote in religious ceremonies.

Socioeconomic:

This category examines socioeconomic status, which in the United States is defined by education, income, and occupation.  Socioeconomic status is a powerful predictor of health, with those in lower groups experiencing worse health outcomes across all racial demographics. For example, it is seen that socioeconomic status determines various diseases observed in the population, such as breast cancer and tuberculosis.

Social Conditions:

Social conditions of the determinants of health have an enormous -- if often overlooked -- impact on human health. By social (and economic) conditions, we mean everything that affects where we live, work, and grow. The following list of social conditions gives a flavor of how broad this category can be:

• Education
• Job status
• Neighborhood quality
• Income
• Family support networks
• Political voice
• Housing availability and quality
• Community organizations

Social conditions can strongly influence a person's stress levels and health behaviors. Social conditions can affect a person's access to healthcare and their environmental exposures. In this sense, social conditions aren't just one factor in shaping health; they are an underlying influence on nearly all the factors.

Social conditions are explored further in a later section on the Social Determinants of Health.

 

 

Reference

Mayo Clinic (2025). Huntington's disease. Mayo Clinic www.mayoclinic.org

Stoewen, D. (2017).  Dimensions of wellness: Change your habits, change your life. National Library of Medicine. The Canadian Veterinary Journal Aug 58(8): 861-862. www.pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (n.d.). Healthy People 2030. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. www.odphp.health.gov

U.S. Preventive Services/Task Force. (n.d.). Task Force at a Glance. U.S. Preventive Services www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org