Understanding and measuring Australia's health

Health has no single meaning. The World Health Organization (WHO) defined it in 1948 as a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. This is a holistic definition because it looks beyond illness. The biomedical view is narrower: a person is healthy when no disease or injury can be diagnosed.

Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people describe health as the social, emotional and cultural wellbeing of the whole community, including connection to Country, kin and culture, so health belongs to the group as well as the individual. A young person might simply say that health means sleeping well, playing sport and feeling accepted by friends.

People hold different meanings because of age, culture, beliefs and values, life experience and socioeconomic circumstances, and because of the sources they trust, such as family, school, social media and health professionals. Someone recovering from a serious illness may value being able to manage daily tasks, while an elite athlete may define health as peak physical function.

Health is also dynamic, meaning it is never fixed. The dimensions of health (physical, social, emotional, mental and spiritual) interact, so a change in one usually affects the others. A sports injury (physical) can reduce time with teammates (social), lower mood (emotional) and increase worry about the future (mental). Good social support can speed recovery in the opposite direction.

The health continuum shows health as a line from optimal health at one end to serious ill health or death at the other. People move back and forth along it across a day, a season or a lifetime. Their position changes with time (ageing, illness, recovery) and with their circumstances: income, housing, education, family support, culture and access to services.

Two people with the same illness can sit at different points on the continuum because one has strong support and resources while the other does not.

• Holistic meanings include more than physical health.
• Biomedical meanings focus on disease and treatment.
• Health changes over time and differs between individuals.