Overview
Seven factors contribute to the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities (Stallman, 2017). These are:
- Healthy Environments. From the moment of conception, physical, social, cultural, economic and learning environments affect health and wellbeing.
- Developmental Competencies. Developmental competencies are: 1) a healthy identity, 2) emotional and behavioural regulation; 3) interpersonal skills; and 4) problem-solving skills.
- Sense of Belonging. Feeling a sense of belonging to one’s community includes feeling valued, respected and included in family, community, workplace and university.
- Healthy Behaviours. Sleep, nutrition, physical activity, and mastery and pleasurable activities are essential for health, wellbeing, and learning.
- Coping. Coping is the behavioural response to reduce unpleasant emotions. Coping strategies can be healthy or unhealthy. Both are likely to reduce immediate distress. Unhealthy coping strategies are likely to have additional adverse consequences.
Unhealthy coping strategies are used for overwhelming distress, that is distress that cannot be reduced using healthy strategies alone. - Resilience. Resilience is the process of bouncing back after having coped with a challenging situation. Resilience is innate. Those who experience the most adversity are the most resilient.
- Treatment of illness. Timely access to evidence-based treatments for physical illnesses and psychological disorders helps minimise the impact of illness.