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Accessing Health Promotion Health Needs

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Accessing health promotion needs

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Life expectancy has increased over the last 50 years. For example, in the United Kingdom, life expectancy for men was 85 years while 89 for women as at 2010 (Lucas and Lloyd 2005).In the developed countries, the main factor that contributed to increased life expectancy was increased personal hygiene and universal clean water. Moreover, improved medicines in particular antibiotics and development of vaccines have greatly influenced the rise in life expectancy. Are we living healthier lives than our parents did? The answer is no. During our parents’ era, food was grown from gardens and grew by use of natural fertilizers. They did not use pesticides to control pests, herbicides or grow genetically modified foods. In addition, they accessed water from wells and it was not chlorinated like ours. At that time, food lacked additives that characterize food in our times (Valente 2012). Moreover, people were involved in physical activities throughout their lives. This ensured that people did not gain extra weight and remained physically fit. However, with our generation things are slightly different. Our generation thrives on processed foods, fewer physical activities, exposed to hard drugs, unsafe sex and television. These activities have adversely affected our health. Several factors determine the health of an individual and the community as a whole. From a socio-economic perspective, higher income is assumed to be an indicator of better health. This may be attributed to the fact that higher income determines the health care services that one may be able to afford. Education may be a factor that determines the health status of an individual. People with lower education levels have been associated with more stress and low self esteem, all which are detrimental to good health. Conversely, well educated individuals are believed to have good health based on their exposure in society in relation to health related matters (Millner, Malseed and Harris 2012, pp. 35-40).The physical environment also plays a big role as a heath determinant factor. Safe housing conditions, good roads, healthy workplaces and clean air and water play a pivotal role in contributing to good health. Good health has been linked to one having support from one’s friends and family. The world health assembly held in Geneva during the month of may 2012, ranked the current health issues relating to the developed countries, the developing ones and a general analysis (Millner, Malseed and Harris 2012, pp. 35-40). Overall, malaria, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, Ischemic heart disease, and lower respiratory diseases may be classified as the current health issues that affect the world. In developing countries particularly in Africa, HIV/AIDS takes precedence. In the developed countries, lifestyle diseases such as chronic lung diseases, diabetes, cancers and cardiovascular diseases take precedence. There are issues that need to be prioritized. The first issue is nutrition counseling. This is would be a preferable approach for developed countries. The reason is that populations in these nations suffer from lifestyle diseases. For developing countries, governments should carry out sex education on the population at large. This may play a big role in curbing the spread of HIV/AIDS (Pauperio et. al 2013). In conclusion, measuring health of a community is very important. The data may be able to give an overview of the health status of a particular country and may be dependent on the several factors as earlier explained. Moreover, it helps in collecting data that may be required by health agencies to be able to determine where immediate action should be implemented as advocated for by Millner, Malseed and Harris (2013).
References
Millner,L Malseed,C and Harris, N 2013, ‘The development of a cook book as a nutrition promotion resource’, International journal of health promotion and education, vol.51, issue 1, pp. 35-40.
Pauperio, T et., al,2013, ‘Adolescents and health related behaviors. What influence can the topology of school have’, International journal of health promotion and education, vol.51, issue 1, pp. 23-34.
Valente, T 2012, Evaluating healthy promotion programs, SAGE Publishers, New York.
Lucas, K and Lloyd B 2005, Health promotion: Evidence and experience, SAGE Publishers, New York.

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