Health as an asset: Enhancing personal, social and economic life

Abstract

Abstract Background Health policy in the UK increasingly advocates health as an asset (Baker, 2014; NHS England, 2019) focussing on the holistic capacity of health to support the wider flourishing of individuals (Hanlon et al., 2011). This research illuminates the cross-cutting impacts of public health investment for the personal social and economic life of individuals. Methods An observational longitudinal study based on data from the British Household Panel and Understanding Society Surveys covering 25 years from 1991 is undertaken. Satisfaction with partners, subjective financial situation and levels of structural social capital are regressed on measures of general subjective health and the GHQ12 score of mental health and confounders. A fixed effects instrumental variable panel data estimation identifies causal effects. Results With a significance level of at least p < 0.05, mental illness reduces satisfaction with personal relationships for males (n = 115,273). For males and females, both greater general subjective health and mental health improve feelings of coping financially (n = 329,282) and social capital (n = 150,298). Conclusions Changes in sets of health conditions, acting through general and mental health, produce cross-cutting impacts on personal, social and economic outcomes. These findings support the proposition that health is an asset and that both further analysis and prioritisation of greater coordinated deployment of health care assets in communities is needed. References Baker, D. (2014). Developing and implementing a robust asset-based approach to public health. Perspectives in Public Health, 134(3), 129-130. Hanlon, P., Carlisle, S., Hannah, M., Reilly, D., & Lyon, A. (2011). Making the case for a “fifth wave” in public Health. Public Health, 125(1), 30-36. NHS England. (2019). The NHS Long Term Plan - a summary, 2. Key messages Health can be viewed as an asset comprising of a range of conditions that can have causal impacts on the personal, social and economic lives of individuals and their wider flourishing. Harnessing health as an asset requires the development of greater integrated health care, social and individual support to capitalise on the cross-cutting impacts of health.