Health is a complex, multifactorial state, with many determinants affecting a person's health level. These include heredity, environment, lifestyle, socioeconomic conditions, and welfare services.
The factors influencing health-illness status can be internal or external and may or may not be under a person's control.
These factors relate to a person's human dimensions, and each dimension is typically interrelated.
First is the physical dimension includes a person's genetic inheritance, age, developmental level, race, and gender.
The emotional dimension includes how the mind affects body functions and responds to body conditions.
The intellectual dimension encompasses cognitive abilities, knowledge about illness, and past life experiences that influence health and illness status.
The elements in the environmental dimension include housing, sanitation, climate, and pollution, which may strongly influence health.
Lastly, the sociocultural and spiritual dimensions influence health practices, beliefs, values, health, and illness behavior.
The factors influencing the health-illness continuum can be internal or external and may or may not be under conscious control. They are related to the following eight human dimensions, and each dimension is interrelated to one other.