Health is related deeply to life-style. Ideal health will however, always remains a mirage, because everything in our life is subject to change. Health may be described as a potentiality—the ability of an individual or a social group to modify himself or itself continually, in the face of changing conditions of life not only, in order to function better in the present but also to prepare for the future.
The importance of health in personal life cannot be minimized. It has come to be regarded as a prerequisite for optimum socio-economic development of man. Health care as a right of every individual has been recognized in many countries.
In the "Universal Declaration of the Human Rights", there are 30 articles. The Right to better living conditions and the Right to Health and Medical service are vital. Though the health is now recognized as a fundamental right of every human being, it is essentially an individual responsibility. It is the individual who has to accept certain responsibilities in order to attain good health, i.e.- responsibility about diet, personal hygiene, cultivation of healthful habits, carrying out specific disease prevention measures. It is also desirable that in the personal life every individual should be acquainted with the essential health skills to stay healthy.
The family is a primary social group. It is a group of biologically related individuals. The family is like a 'shock absorber' to the stress and strains of life. At the time of emotional upsets, worry, anxiety, economic insecurity, the family provides an opportunity for release of tension.
The family therefore plays an important part both in health and disease in the prevention and treatment of individual illnesses, in the care of children and dependent adults, and in the stabilization of the personality of both adults and children In most societies the family is the fulcrum of health services Medical schools are developing teaching programmers in family medicine; because, as Florence Nightingale had said, "the secret of national health lies in the homes of the people".
Society is a group of individuals drawn together by a common bond of nearness and who act together in general for the achievement of certain common goals. The society plays an important role in the health as well as in disease; public health is an integral part of the social system. It is influenced by society and society by public health. Many public health problems are social problems and vice-versa.