Family Health as Context
Family health has contextual, functional, and structural domains (See Figure 2 in "Family Health as Structure."). The context has to do with the diverse environments with potential to affect individual and family health. The contextual domain relates to the internal environment (i.e., member context, family context, household context) and external environment (neighborhood context, community context, greater social context, historical context, political context). Contextual dimensions include all persons identified as family, defining characteristics of the family (e.g., race, culture, age, gender, educational attainment, economic status of the family, extended family), the family household, the neighborhood, the community, and the diverse environments relevant to family health.
The family context includes all of the environments where individual members interact or have potential to interact upon them. Context includes family members and household embedded in the larger environment. The family microsystem includes: (a) the household niche of the developing person, (b) all developing persons residing in the household, (c) relationships with extended family members, (d) intergenerational relationships even when persons are no longer alive or present in the setting, (e) immediate neighborhood, and the (f) local community.
The family household is the domicile maintained and resided in by the developing members; this residence includes: (a) the physical structure, (b) the immediate surroundings, (c) material goods, (d) tangible and intangible family resources, and (e) all of the interactions of developing persons with them. The complexity of family context deepens as one also considers the dynamic interactions occurring over the life course. The family context interacts with diverse external environments that have the potential to potentiate, mediate, and negate individual and family health. The context supports or threatens well-being and processes of becoming. Family members act upon the context that has potential to strengthen, weaken, maintain, sustain, or destroy them. The embedded context includes history, society, policy, law, ethics, traditions, culture, and time pertinent to health. The environment influences the family and tempers behaviors, goals, resources, and experiences. The context is integral to health, pervades all aspects of family life, and influences where persons interact and develop beliefs, gather health information, identify support systems, and establish health routines.
Dr. Denham discusses the Contextual domain of the Family Health Model
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