The family has been considered the oldest institution, important and fundamental humanity. Ensuring their protection is a duty and a commitment to society and the Health systems worldwide. The family is currently undergoing a process of profound change, due to continuing global changes that have occurred in recent decades, these changes threaten structural stability, functional and evolutionary, bringing consequent changes in patterns of health and wellness to throughout the family life cycle. The changes experienced by families and the attention given to them in public policy have been less studied areas. It is therefore important that the state and health systems, including family organization and family patterns as central and fundamental in state welfare policies, taking into account that the family has been, is and will remain the social institution par excellence. Similarly, it is crucial that health professionals address the family unit and integrative approach, considering everything as a whole greater than the sum of parts, in order to enhance the sustainability of the family from current events and to come.
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Global changes and their repercussion in the familyThis allows us to bring up a series of questions within the different disciplines that are concerned with the study of families. These questions start from the idea of how changes in social structures, economics, politics, medicine, law and science in general, induce and/or lead to mutations in the family.5 Today, the humanity is going through a process of profound global changes related to economic development, population education, the phenomenon of globalization, demographic aspects, immigration, changes in epidemiological patterns, among others; many of which influence not only the health system and the health care setting, 9 but are also fundamental factors that disrupt the balance of family unity 2,10 and remove the structural, functional and evolutionary foundations of families that make up the society of the 21 st century. In particular, this phenomenon is experienced by Latin American families due to the great existing social inequalities, 11 with some similarities in families of developed countries. An example of this is the case of accelerated aging of the population, low birth rates, increased life expectancy, chronic processes, disability, long-term care and dependency.12 All this, added to the own sociocultural factors that determine the interaction of the family with the environment, causing characteristic changes in its composition and organization. According to the UN, it is expected that these phenomena will increase in the coming decades. The world population will reach 7.000 million people in three years, compared with 6,800 million that existed until 2009; It will even exceed 9,000 million by 2050. That is, it will be 49.6% more than in 2000, and this increase will occur mostly in developing countries and in the population over 60 years.13 This number will increase from 600 million in 2000 to 1.200 in 2025 and ...