Our freedom to thrive depends on having a consistent set of vital conditions, such as clean air, fair pay, humane housing, early education, routine health care, and other basic necessities. Personal experiences may rise and fall from birth to death. However, vital conditions persist over generations. They shape the exposures, choices, opportunities, and adversities that we each encounter throughout our lives.
The Seven Vital Conditions for Well-Being is a useful framework for conceptualizing holistic well-being and the Conditions that give rise to it, as well as identifying levers for community change and improvement. It brings together major determinants of health, exposing how parts of a multi-faceted whole work as a system to produce population well-being. This framework helps users consider the properties of places and institutions that all people need all the time to be healthy and well. This framework advances a collaborative, cross-sector approach to improving community health and well-being and helps identify where and how to invest in communities to yield better results over time.
Each vital condition is distinct and indispensable. Together, they form an interdependent system that shapes opportunities for people and places to thrive. If any vital condition is denied or otherwise unfulfilled serious adversity can accumulate, revealing itself in excess rates of illness, unemployment, housing distress, food insecurity, loneliness, and more. (author description) #P4HEwebinarMarch2024