While the bio-medical definition of health focuses on the absence of disease, when asked what makes them feel healthy, communities often identify many other factors ranging from financial security to nourishing relationships. This new report from the Creating Health Collaborative, an international community of innovators, puts forth principles for “creating health beyond healthcare” and identifies key drivers shifting the field. Notable principles include embracing complexity, measuring what matters, acknowledging power imbalances, and sustainability. The report is drawn from the Creating Health Collaborative’s July 2015 convening.
We believe that at the heart of this struggle is our inability to define health as more than just 'the absence of disease', a definition derived from the bio-medical model, which underpins our current health care system. The system's dominance of the health debate fails to allow for alternative definitions of health... Read full report.