Family health looks at children's health and well-being in the context of their family unit. The health of the family as a whole plays a major role in determining the health of each child within that family. This applies not only to children’s physical health but to their emotional health as well.
Our society professes the ideal that every child should grow up in a household under the care of a pair of loving adults who possess appropriate parenting skills. The reality today is that divorce, single parenting, and step-parenting are common. Adoption and foster-parenting are not uncommon. Surrogacy with sperm and egg donors make for some unusual parenting combinations. The traditional household is not the only type of household in which children are growing up today.
The provision of adequate child care and supervision -- and the prevention of child abuse and neglect -- need to be openly addressed. One of the most tragic situations is the physical injury, emotional damage or even death that occurs because a caregiver has shaken, burned, hit or sexually assaulted a child.
Community Health & Children
Community health goes beyond the family to the community as important to the health and well being of children. Children need a healthy and safe environment in which to grown up.
There is a big difference between living on a farm, in a small town, in the suburbs or in an inner city. A neighborhood with prostitutes, drug dealers and drive-by shootings is an unhealthy community in which to raise children. Not to mention the need for children to grow up in a healthy environment that provides clean air to breathe and clean water to drink.
Other community links that can influence the health of children include schools, sports programs and learning resources such as libraries. To paraphrase the phrase, “It takes a village to raise a child, “it might be said that, “It takes the community to raise a healthy child.”
