DEFINITIONS: INTRODUCTION TO HEALTH & WELLNESS:1. Health: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” – World Health Organization.2. Wellness: Optimal Health and Vitality, encompassing all the seven dimensions of well-being.3. Risk Factor: A condition that increases one’s chances of disease or injury.4. Morbidity Rate: The relative incidence of disease among a population.5. Mortality Rate: The number of deaths in a population in a given period of time. It is usually expressed as a ratio. Example; 75 deaths per 1000 members of the population.6. Infectious Disease: A disease that can spread from person to person, caused by microorganisms such as bacteria and viruses.7. Life expectancy: The period of time a member of a given population is expected to live.8. Impaired life: The period of a person’s life when he or she may not be able to function fully due to disease or disability.9. Chronic Disease: A disease that develops and continues over a long period of time, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes or cancer.10. Lifestyle choice: A conscious behavior that can increase or decrease a person’s risk of disease or injury. Such behaviors include smoking, exercising, eating healthy etc.11. Health Promotion: The process of enabling people to increase control over their health and its determinants, thereby improving their health.12. Disease Prevention: The process of providing tools that people and communities need to protect their health by reducing risks, promoting health, preventing disease, injury and disability and preparing for new health threats.13. Sex: The biological and physiological characteristics that define men and women.14. Gender: The roles, behaviors, activities and attributes that a given society attributes specifically to men and women.15. Genome: The complete set of genetic material in individual cells.16. Gene: The basic unit of heredity. A section of genetic material containing chemical instructions for making a particular protein.17. Behavior change: A lifestyle management process that involves cultivating healthy behaviors and working to overcome unhealthy