Figure - PMC

Skip to main content

An official website of the United States government

Here's how you know

Here's how you know

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

View full-text article in PMC

. 2010 Jun 15;7(4):A71.

Search in PMC
Search in PubMed
View in NLM Catalog
Add to search

This is a publication of the U.S. Government. This publication is in the public domain and is therefore without copyright. All text from this work may be reprinted freely. Use of these materials should be properly cited.

PMC Copyright notice

Chart showing the relationship between distal and proximal factors, physiologic factors, diseases and injuries, and health outcomes — A causal web that illustrates various factors influencing health outcomes and interactions among them. Solid arrows represent potential causal relationships between factors, diseases, and outcomes. Dashed arrows represent potential feedback from outcomes and diseases on proximal and distal factors. Distal and proximal factors operate through both intermediate factors and directly on health outcomes. For example, a person's level of education can directly influence his or her subjective sense of health and level of social function and also influence intermediate factors, such as diet and exercise. Similarly, the understanding that death or loss of function may occur as the result of a person's lifestyle or social and economic factors, such as education and poverty, may influence those factors through either behavior change or changes in social or economic policy. Examples of factors, diseases, and injuries were chosen to provide a sense of the breadth of available factors. To improve readability, the relationships among proximal factors, physiologic factors, diseases and injuries, and health outcomes have been simplified. Adapted from references 4-6. Abbreviation: ASCVD, atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.