Final answer:
Population health focuses on health outcomes and their distribution within a group, considering a broad range of influences including social determinants, whereas the biomedical approach targets individual diseases and uses medical sciences for diagnosis and treatment, often overlooking broader social factors.
Step-by-step explanation:
The population health approach is a holistic concept that encompasses the health outcomes of a group of individuals, including the distribution of such outcomes within the group. It focuses on the interrelated conditions and factors that influence the health of populations over the life course, identifies systematic variations in their patterns of occurrence, and applies the resulting knowledge to develop and implement policies and actions to improve the health and well-being of those populations. This is in contrast to the biomedical approach, which concentrates mainly on the biological aspects of diseases and health problems in individuals and emphasizes the use of medical sciences to diagnose, treat, and prevent illness without much focus on social and societal influences.
While the biomedical approach provides critical insights and treatments at an individual level, the population health approach considers a wider array of factors, including social, economic, environmental, and political influences, and stresses the importance of these determinants on health outcomes. Instead of merely treating diseases, the population health approach aims to prevent them by addressing the root causes and employing public health policies and community-based interventions. This broader view acknowledges that health outcomes are not solely a product of healthcare but also of other factors such as lifestyle, genetics, and, notably, social determinants such as education level, income, and social supports.