HEALTH AS 2015

Health Issues

1. Global patterns of health, morbidity and mortality: health in world affairs.

2. The study of one infectious disease (e.g. malaria, HIV/AIDS) its global distribution and its impact on health, economic development and lifestyle.

3. The study of one non-communicable disease (e.g. coronary disease, cancer) its global distribution and its impact on health, economic development and lifestyle.

4. Food and health – malnutrition, periodic famine, obesity.

5. Contrasting health care approaches in countries at different stages of development.

6. Health matters in a globalising world economy – transnational corporations and pharmaceutical research, production and distribution; tobacco transnationals.

7. Regional variations in health and morbidity in the UK.

8. Factors affecting regional variations in health and morbidity – age structure, income and occupation type, education, environment and pollution.

9. Age, gender, wealth and their influence on access to facilities for exercise, health care, and good nutrition.

10. A local case study on the implications of the above for the provision of health care systems.

Key words

• Health ­ A state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing

• Morbidity ­ Illness and disease

• Mortality ­ The death of people

• Infant mortality ­ deaths of children under the age of 1 per 1000 births per year

• Case mortality ­ number of those dying from a disease divided by the number of those diagnosed with it

• Crude death rate ­ the number of deaths per 1000 people in 1 year

• Disease ­ bodily disorder preventing good health

• Pandemic ­ epidemic spreads over large area

• Epidemic ­ quickly spreading disease affecting a lot of people

• Endemic ­ infectious disease always in an area

Global patterns of health, morbidity and mortality: health in world affairs.

Health

• Health is defined as your physical, mental and social well-being, and the absence of disease

• How healthy a country s depends on how much disease there is in the county, and what type if diseases there are

Morbidity

• Morbidity refers to the state of being diseased or unhealthy within a population

• It I measured by the ICU (intensive care unit) scoring system

• The Morbidity rate is taken according to age, gender, area and type of disease

• Global patterns of Morbidity differ depending on the type of disease

• For example an infectious disease (malaria) is common in poorer countries where as non-communicable diseases (cancer) are common in wealthier countries

Reasons for high infectious disease (in poor countries)

• Malnutrition (due to poor food availability and potential famines) reduces the body’s ability to fight disease

• Lack of clean water and sanitation – increases the spread of infectious diseases

• Overcrowded conditions in urban areas – increases spread of infectious diseases

• Poor access to health care – people can’t access drugs to treat and prevent infectious diseases

• Limited health education – people aren’t well informed about how they can avoid infectious disease

• Disease vectors (organisms that spread disease) are more common in poorer countries e.g. mosquitoes that spread malaria are commonly found in tropical regions of Africa

Reasons for high non-communicable disease (in wealthy countries)

• Higher proportion of older people (due to…