What is a Population Health Approach?

The overall goal of a population health approach is to maintain and improve the health of the entire population and to reduce inequalities in health between population groups.

There is strong evidence indicating that factors outside the health care system significantly affect health. These "determinants of health" include income and social status, social support networks, education, employment and working conditions, physical environments, social environments, biology and genetic endowment, personal health practices and coping skills, healthy child development, health services, gender and culture.

In a population health approach, the entire range of known (i.e., evidence-based) individual and collective factors and conditions that determine population health status – and the interactions among them – are taken into account in planning action to improve health.

While the definition of a population health approach is still evolving, a number of important attributes have been identified. A population health approach:

• is a conceptual framework for thinking about health. It can help us identify the factors that influence health, analyze them and assess their relative importance in determining health. Our decisions on what and where investments should be made will be guided by a single, cohesive framework.
• includes decisions (about priorities, investments, or policy change, for example) that are guided by a consideration of the evidence about the relative contribution to population health status of multiple health determinants and their interactions.
• is also a framework for taking action, through policies, programs and services, on health issues in a population in ways that consider and respond to multiple determinants.
• involves actions primarily targeted at the societal, community, structural or system level which are necessary in order to have an impact on health status at the population or group level.
• requires collaboration between multiple sectors (e.g., government, business and voluntary organizations) in the field on health, environment, transportation and so on. Because most health determinants lie in sectors other than health, their involvement is essential. By the same token, because the focus is on health status, the health sector may take the lead. Multi-sectoral analysis and decision-making characterize a population health approach.

A population health approach has the potential for making a significant contribution to improving health and reducing health inequalities, and to helping integrate policy and action on health services with policy and action on other determinants.

For purposes of federal action, a population health approach aims to ensure that investments (e.g., infrastructure, policies, programs, services, research, education) will have the greatest positive impact on the health of people and communities in which they live.

Taken from "Taking Action on Population Health" (Health Canada 1999)

Important Notices