A healthy community certainly includes access to affordable, high-quality healthcare services. As noted by a former Joy-Southfield free clinic patient, “I need this clinic like I need oxygen.”  However, the majority of factors contributing to health are non-medical - the so-called “social determinants of health.”
 

These determinants include: early childhood development, education, economic opportunities, housing, community safety, transportation, safe outdoor recreational facilities, local access to affordable, healthy food, knowledge about healthy behaviors, social connectivity, among others.  Health begins in the community.  Disease begins in the community.  It takes a deliberate, persistent, collaborative, respectful and community-based approach to swing the pendulum toward health.