Health risk factors like smoking, excessive drinking, illicit drug use, lack of physical activity, inadequate fruit and vegetable intake and overweight have powerful influences on health, and there are frequently clear inter-regional differences between the prevalence of these.
While it can be argued that there is some degree of personal choice involved in whether individuals have a poor health risk profile, there is clear evidence that external factors such as environment, opportunity, and community culture each have very strong influences. For example, access to affordable healthy food can often be poor in smaller communities and this, coupled with lower incomes in these areas, adversely affects the quality of peoples’ diets, the prevalence of overweight, and consequently the prevalence of chronic disease.