There are many determinants and health status of an individual or a society/ population. The social environment is one of the major aspects that affects health outcomes for an individual or a population (Nutbeam, Harris & Wise, 2010). Factors within the immediate social environment of a person; including diets, lifestyles and health beliefs play a vital role in shaping the concept of health. This being the case, when it comes to community health promotion, there is an accentuation to view a certain community with the lens of its unique social characteristics in order to understand the quality of interplay between the social environment and health (Nutbeam, Harris & Wise, 2010).
The life course theory is one of the theoretical frameworks that help in gaining an in-depth understanding of a population or the society at large within the lens of the prevailing social and cultural context (Farrington, 2011). Precisely, this theory seeks to determine or predict life outcomes, based on the past and present social and cultural characteristics (Farrington, 2011). As such, the life course theory provides a sound basis for understanding some of the present-day health patterns from a social and cultural perspective, hence placing the healthcare provider at a vantage point in terms of tailor-making community health initiatives to address a specific health issue.
For instance, it is apparent that lifestyle diseases are on the rise in the 21st century. Examples of these diseases include; hypertension, obesity and diabetes among others. Guided by the life course theory, understanding the root cause of this trend is pretty practical and viable, especially, if one revisits man’s history over the last few decades and tracking the cultural and hence lifestyle changes that have occurred during this past. As Carrera-Bastos et al. (2011), suggests, over the last few decades, humanity in general has inclined towards unhealthy lifestyles that are annotated by increased intake of unhealthy foods and lack of physical activity. Believably, unhealthy diets and a sedentary lifestyle have been evidently linked with increased likelihood of developing these diseases. In this regard, extrapolating from the underlying concepts of the life course theory, it is apparent that this cultural and lifestyle shift is the prime suspect for the increased prevalence of lifestyle diseases in the modern-day. When it comes to addressing this health issue, the best approach is to understand its root cause and subsequently, design the community health promotion in a manner that endeavors to promote physical exercise and intake of healthy diets. For example, for a community showing increased prevalence of these diseases, modification of culture and lifestyle aspects, could be termed as an evidence-based approach that could help in improving health outcomes for the community in as far as lifestyle diseases are involved.
References
Carrera-Bastos, P., Fontes-Villalba, M., O’Keefe, J. H., Lindeberg, S., & Cordain, L. (2011). The western diet and lifestyle and diseases of civilization.Res Rep Clin Cardiol, 2, 15-35.
Farrington, D. P. (Ed.). (2011). Integrated developmental and life-course theories of offending (Vol. 1). Transaction Publishers.
Nutbeam, D., Harris, E., & Wise, W. (2010). Theory in a nutshell: a practical guide to health promotion theories (pp. no-no). McGraw-Hill.
