Patricia M Davidson
Johns Hopkins University, USA
Title: Health care: a life course approach to health and well-being
Biography
Biography: Patricia M Davidson
Abstract
Health care knowledge and practice models are commonly compartmentalized and siloed leading to poor integration and adverse health outcomes across health and social services. Healthy People 2020 in the United States and the World Health Organization’s, Closing the gap in a generation: Health equity through action on the social determinants of health (2008) provide roadmaps for addressing the social determinants of health as well as biological issues. In this presentation the importance of social determinants of health will be addressed and demonstration of how the environments into which people are born determine health and well –being across the lifespan, even at the moment of death. This is an important call to action for nurses and midwives and requires considering the intersection of health and social services from maternity to end-of-life care. Implications for policy, practice, education and research will be presented.