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Article: Family Health
- Article from:
- Encyclopedia of Public Health
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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FAMILY HEALTH
Family health is a state in which the family is a resource for the day-to-day living and health of its members. A family provides its individual members with key resources for healthful living, including food, clothing, shelter, a sense of self-worth, and access to medical care. Further, family health is a socioeconomic process whereby the health of family members is mentioned.
As the basic socioeconomic unit of most societies, the family is the interface between societal and individual health, and the economic interface between the family and society determines what resources are available for a family's health. For example, in some families the father is the primary ...