Health Psychological Self-Sufficiency (Health-PSS): A Bottom-Up Human-Social Development Approach to Health Equity

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This article presents a community-based participatory action research process in a mixed-methods study to uncover a holistic perspective on what constitutes “good health and well-being” as one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This bottom-up approach to defining health from the community perspective challenges the general government and health industry assumptions and practices to promote top-down health equity. Applying the definition of social development as “achieving a civil society based on freedom and justice”, the emerging findings adds to the social determinants of health framework in health disparities research. As multiple stakeholders added to the definitions of health and well-being, a process-based understanding of health emerged. Health psychological self-sufficiency (Health-PSS) is a process of recogniting various individual and structural barriers and reaching for improved health-related goals with hope actions leading to health empowerment in literacy, access, and outcomes. Human-social development implications for promoting health equity by building an inclusive health system with a culture of co-sufficiency that align individual and organizational processes are discussed.