Some Questions on Public Health

Country of choice (5 points)

There is an increase in obesity prevalence in the U.S.A that has caused a crisis in public health. Individuals who are obese are more prevalent to cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and diabetes (Sassi, Cecchini, Lauer, & Chisholm, 2009). About 20.1 % of the older population are obese while 36.7% are overweight. Overweight and obese populations have increasingly spread with the metropolitan areas having the highest levels. The obesity and overweight status are usually determined using the Body Mass Index (BMI) formula. When your BMI is more than 25, you are considered overweight, and when your BMI is more than 30, you are considered obese.

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Public health inequity (5 points)

Developing a health equity is a major value of APHA. Health equity means every person can get the best health levels. Health equity is determined by looking into the conditions that people live, born, learn, work and age. These health determinants are caused by money, power, education, employment, food access and employment (Braveman, et al., 2011). When people are not able to access these conditions to reach their full potential, inequalities are created. Health inequalities are not similar to health disparities since health disparities can be measured to achieve health equity.

Relationship between Country and Public Health Inequity (10 points)

Health inequalities have affected the U.S as Americans suffer worse health and die younger than individuals living in other countries. These health inequalities are caused by the U.S political economy, rooted in its history and overlaid by current neo-liberalism changes. U.S was the healthiest nation in the world, but political decisions have led to the suffering of the health of people.

Social Determinants Description of Health in the country (list at least four social determinants of health in that country you selected. Please be very specific (10 pt.)

The economic systems and social structures are accountable for health inequities. For example, the physical environment, social environment, societal and structural factors and health services.

Determinants of Health

Sex, age, race and ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation all affect health. Creating awareness of the disparity that exist among populations on health determinants and health outcomes is important to reduce disparity that exists among communities. The factors that lead to a health status of an individual are socioeconomic, biological, social and psychosocial, behavioral in nature. There are five health determinants; social environment, health services, social environment and genetics and biology.

Explanation of Specific Health Determinants (40 points)

Urban environment can influence the health of a given population. The Social Determinants of Health can provide solutions lack of heath cares, clean water, poor health, and sanitation. This paper will focus on SDH in an urban environment. These social determinants include urban slums, unsafe workplaces, lack of health systems, globalization, and unemployment (Cluss, Ewing, Long, Krieger, & Lovelace, 2010).

Social determinant 1 and health inequity: Physical environment

An individual status and place of residence are major physical environment determinants of health. The activities of industries only impact cities through pollution and cheap housing mainly occur in less desirable areas. Natural disasters have also influenced health status in towns and regions.

A persons area of residence should be located in places with easy access to care and exposure. Individuals living in slums are always vulnerable due to nonexistent land tenure, poor infrastructure and unsubstantiated relations with law enforcement and governments (Sassi, Cecchini, Lauer, & Chisholm, 2009).

Social determinant 1 and health inequity: Social Environment

Ethnicity and race usually categorize populations using behavioral, economic, biologic, social and cultural factors (Adams, Harris, & Schatzkin, 2006). The correlation between health and ethnic origin or race are multifactorial and complex. Particular individuals may develop particular diseases due to allelic inheritance. However, some diseases are linked access to care and livelihood differences. Racism also affects health through the restriction to access to material resources; health services, social services, educational, economic, and occupational opportunities (Bender & Clark, 2011).

Social Determinant 1 and health inequity: Biology and genetics

Gender is more of just being a man or a woman and gender norms are stipulated in the environment that people live in (Haupt, Thamer, & Machann, 2008). Using SDH, it is important to realize the difference between the health needs of men and women and the gender role that shape the behavior of a person. Using SDH, gender is defined as a womans social position in the society, employment activities and health services access. The SDH is, therefore, essential to understanding the manner in which towns influence populations health. SDH thus, have different implications for different environment from rural to urban, among cities and countries.

Social Determinant 1 and health inequity

Health access and social service: An individual who has a low socio-economic status mostly tend to live in cities, and they may lack insurance for health. Such individuals, therefore, get poor quality of health care and face health care barriers. The increase prevalence of people having no citizenship or insurance leads to pressure on the systems that are available. This cause disparity in the outcomes in healthcare systems where people can access routine and preventive health care.

Explanation of Association Between the health (30 points)

The association between health literacy and health inequity using epidemiologic studies only

Health literacy involves knowledge, expectations, and the skills that health specialists have the interest of the public in understanding health services and information which are commonly technical, unfamiliar and complicated for people. Individuals of all incomes, ages education levels and races are not only individuals whom English is their SL or with little reading skills. Based on the information from the Department of Education in U.S, 12% of English-speaking individuals are good in literacy skills based on health. The effect of limited health literacy excessively distresses minority and lower socio-economic groups (Davidson & Knafl, 2006).

The association between cultural awareness and health inequity using epidemiologic studies only.

Based on U.S census results in 2010, the increase of Asian, Hispanic and Black ethnic groups has grown and by 2042 there will be people who will be minority-majority, where Hispanic groups will form 24% of the U.S populace, 15% to be blacks and 8% to be Asians. The increase of ethnic minorities is going to take place as early as 2023 among adolescents and children. Looking into the health needs of the minority individuals is a challenge for public health and health care systems. Moreover, epidemiologists are today involved in efforts that address the disparities in health past the analysis, dissemination, and interpretation of health data.

The association between life expectancy in the country you selected and the health inequity using epidemiologic studies only.

Adams et al. describe that obesity is linked to death and continue to describe that patient who has never smoked and is overweight and obese experience more death risk of about 40% compared to patients who have normal weight (Braveman, et al., 2011).

An individual who is obese is more likely to increase the chance of developing chronic diseases, for example, hypertension, diabetes, stroke and heart disease. Moreover, obesity is also associated with different diseases of the digestive systems, for instance, gastroesophageal reflux disease, colorectal polyps, liver disease and cancer.

Due to more death rates and risks linked to obesity, the epidemic areas of obesity brings an economical, financial burden of about $117 Billion (Cluss, Ewing, Long, Krieger, & Lovelace, 2010). Since has increased in the last decade the estimates could be higher.

Description of Two current efforts in the country to reduce health inequities (20 points).

Effort 1: Tennessee's obesity rates in children for decades has increased steadily, whereas the gaps between Black and White equity among children has increased. About 43.9% of African American kids in Tennessee have obesity compared with about 21.1 % of children who are white. NAACP developed a plan, which expands competitive guidelines for foods in Haywood County School District and Jackson-Madison County School District.

Effort2: Programs in nutrition assistance can assist in lowering the gain access to lower income families to foods that are not expensive and affordable and provide data on healthy eating habits. Around 3.9 million black families in U.S got SNAP benefits in 2011 and 20% of children and women of Blacks were registered in a WIC program (Cluss, Ewing, Long, Krieger, & Lovelace, 2010). SNAP-Ed is a program in the U.S, which provides education to assist African American families in eating healthy foods within revisions and a limited budget that involves options that that has made families consume more foods that are nutritious.

Explanation of development of health policy (20 points)

To reduce obesity, there is a need for policy changes, which improve the physical and food defaults for every person. Environmental plans like the effort of improving healthy food accessibility and the promotion of physical activity are unlikely to be left out by people. Good work policies that are taking place on prevention of obesity are policies of nutrition in schools and programs of improving the environment.

This part will discuss two areas that are seen as strategies for cost-effective population-level change (Cluss, Ewing, Long, Krieger, & Lovelace, 2010)Factors to take into consideration

What causes obesity is the complex contact between human behavior, genetic predisposition, and the environment.

Factors 1

The major contributors to obesity are environmental factors. Obesity is created whenever there is an imbalance energy expenditure and energy intake. However, these factors contribution to obesity development is not well understood.

Kant et al. used data from NHANES research in the U.S to explain that the increase in energy density and quantity of foods eaten indicate a trends, which increase the energy density and quantity of foods eaten is parallel to obesity prevalence in the people in U.S (Davidson & Knafl, 2006). Data from the Central Statistical Office show that car ownership and television viewing, proxy measures of physical inactivity, closely well understood. Dietz et al. show that obesity prevalence is increased by two percent for every hour that an individual view television using NHANES data (Davidson & Knafl, 2006). The difference in prices and the relative availability of diverse products of food influence the consumption of food. The finding shows that strategies that affect high caloric density availability in food, vegetables, and fruit availability lead to the problem of obesity.

Factors 2

Single gene mutations is a genetic predisposition that leads to rare monogenic obesity, pro-opiomelanocortin, melanocortin-4 receptor and leptin receptor forms (Hurst & Nad...