Community-Based Health Promotion

Suni Petersen & Dina E. Goldstein

Health is having quality of life in the physical, emotional, social, cognitive, and spiritual realms. The diseases that pose the most threat to achieving that quality of life are cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and diabetes. The factors that contribute to these diseases are integrally intertwined with the community and deeply connected to culture. Poverty, inadequate education, crime, and unemployment weaken the community, and these factors are associated with a higher prevalence of disease and higher mortality rates from diseases. The human and economic costs affect everyone, and these costs are soaring. Yet, the factors that exacerbate disease are preventable or modifiable. Some factors are personal habits: smoking and chewing tobacco, overeating, sedentary lifestyles, and high consumption of polyunsaturated fats and sugars. Some factors are contextual: school-based soda vending machines, limited and overpriced healthy food choices in inner-city grocery stores or the lack of grocery stores in inner-city neighborhoods, unsafe streets that ...

Users without subscription are not able to see the full content on this title. Please, subscribe or login to access all content on this website.