Throughout life, a person's physical and mental health and well-being are influenced by the broader determinants of health, which include a variety of social, economic, and environmental factors, as well as behavioural risk factors that frequently cluster in the population, reflecting real lives. These factors can be categorised as protective factors or risk factors (Figure 1).

By optimising the conditions in which people are born, live, and work, addressing the broader determinants of health will contribute to an improvement in population health. Instead of concentrating on one condition at a single stage in life, a life course approach considers the critical stages, transitions, and settings where substantial differences can be made to promote or restore health and well-being. Adopting the life course approach allows us to highlight the key opportunities to reduce risk factors and strengthenprotective factors through evidence-based interventions at key life stages, ranging from preconception to the early years and adolescence, the working years, and old age.