Health and Development Across the Lifespan

The research on health and development across the lifespan primarily focuses on four specific age groups. These divisions are small children, older children, adults and elderly. Life course health development (LCHD) is a framework that explains how the dynamic course of health and illness develops over an individual’s lifetime and how this knowledge can be used to guide new approaches to policy and research. It shows that the health of an individual is a result of multiple determinants such as biological, social, genetic, behavioral and economic circumstances that change as a person develops. LCHD also shows that development of health is an adaptive process that is governed by multiple transactions between these circumstances and bio-behavioral regulatory systems that define human functions. It offers a conceptual model for health development and an approach to understand diseases on the basis of the relationship between experience and biology. This book outlines the processes and applications of life course health development in detail. It will also provide interesting topics for research which interested readers can take up. The extensive content of this book provides the readers with a thorough understanding of the subject.