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Canadian Journal of Public Health = Revue Canadienne de Santé Publique logoLink to Canadian Journal of Public Health = Revue Canadienne de Santé Publique
. 1999 Nov 1;90(Suppl 1):S11–S14. doi: 10.1007/BF03403571

Collective Lifestyles as the Target for Health Promotion

Katherine L Frohlich 1,✉, Louise Potvin 1
PMCID: PMC6979813  PMID: 10686752

Abstract

The last five years have witnessed intense debate among health researchers in Canada regarding the overlap of the health promotion and population health discourses. Meanwhile, strong currents within health promotion have attempted to move the field beyond a focus on individual behaviour towards the influence of social environments on health, although the tendency is often to fall back on individual behaviour modification as the primary lever for change. The Population Health research agenda bypasses behavioural determinants of health and explores instead social determinants. This body of knowledge provides useful insight for addressing some of the tensions in the health promotion discourse. This paper explores two of these tensions: whether individuals at risk or general populations should be targeted for change; and whether lifestyle is an individual or a collective attribute. We propose the notion of collective lifestyles as a heuristic for understanding the interaction between social conditions and behaviour in shaping health.

Footnotes

This research was made possible in part by Health Canada through a National Health Research and Development Program (NHRDP) Research Training Award (6605-5226-47R) to K.L. Frohlich and the Medical Research Council through a Scientist Award to L. Potvin (H3-17299-AP007270).

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