Social forces such as politics, economics, quality of and access to medical care, law, business and industry, and culture shape the nature of a community and thereby affect the pursuit of healthy behavior.
Culture is a strong determinant of individual health.
Culture can be defined as a body of learned beliefs, traditions, and guides for behavior shared among a particular group. Healthy behaviors, individual and collective, are in a dynamic relationship with the community. One's community and culture significantly influence individual health status or quality of life, and reciprocally, consequences of individual health decisions positively or negatively affect others within the immediate environment as well as the larger community. Populations may have little or no organization and identity as a group or locality. Communities are one type of population who do have organized arrangements and mutual identity with each other or with common circumstances.