Vital Conditions for Health & Well-Being: Properties of places and institutions that we all depend on to be healthy and well. Vital conditions persist over generations. Seven major categories of vital conditions strongly shape the exposures, choices, opportunities, and adversities that each of us encounter on day one and throughout our lives.

Vital signs like heart rate, temperature, and weight tell us what is going in our body. Likewise, the vital conditions that we inherit from our predecessors and, in turn, confer to future generations tell us about the prospects for health and well-being as a community, a country, and an extended human family.

Each vital condition is distinct and indispensable unto itself; and they work together as a system to produce our legacies of health and well-being over time. They are inseparable parts of a multi-faceted whole.