Fact Sheets

Determinants of Health

The Canadian Nurses Association recognizes that factors inside and outside the health-care system affect health and thus endorses a broad approach to ensuring Canadians’ well-being.

A population health approach “focuses on the interrelated conditions and factors that influence the health of populations over the life course, identifies systematic variations in their patterns of occurrence, and applies the resulting knowledge to develop and implement policies and actions to improve the health and well-being of those populations” (as quoted in Dunn & Hayes, 1999).

As part of its population health approach, the Public Health Agency of Canada (2003) recognized the following determinants of health:

• income and social status
• social support networks
• education and literacy
• employment/working conditions
• social environments
• physical environments
• personal health practices and coping skills
• healthy child development
• biology and genetic endowment
• health services
• gender
• culture

The last section of this resource briefly describes what health-care providers and decision-makers can do to address determinants of health.

This resource has been prepared by CNA to provide information.
The information presented here does not necessarily reflect the views of the CNA Board of Directors.
Published March 2010

References:

Dunn, J. R. & Hayes, M. V. (1999). Toward a lexicon of population health. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 90(suppl 1), S7-S10.

Public Health Agency of Canada. (2003). What makes Canadians healthy or unhealthy? Ottawa: Author. Retrieved March 17, 2009, from http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/ph-sp/determinants/determinants-eng.php#education