Humans continually influence the environment and are influenced by it. The environment is an aggregate of conditions, internal and external, to the human. Within the external environment, society evolves through the interaction of social and political forces. There is interaction between societal influences and individual values concerning health care delivery. Internal and external environments may enhance or disrupt the human's health status.
Health is a dynamic, multi-dimensional state of being in which the potential of a human is realized.
The relative dominance of human strengths or limitations determines health. Health may coexist and interact with illness, and is largely defined by culture. Health is the focus of nursing attention, not as an end in itself, but as a means to life that is meaningful and manageable. Nursing is a practice discipline utilizing nursing theory and research. As a discipline, nursing assists humans by using critical thinking in the nursing process to assess, diagnose, plan, implement, and evaluate.