By now, you have learned that public health is a diverse enterprise facing many
ID: 125465 • Letter: B
Question
By now, you have learned that public health is a diverse enterprise facing many challenges. In a 3-5 page critical analysis (not including title page and references), identify what you believe to be the greatest challenging facing public health. Possible topics include:
Reliable funding
Non-communicable (chronic) disease
Emerging infectious diseases (MERS, SARS, Ebola, Zika)
Risk reduction and safety
Disease detection and medical intelligence
Explain why you believe this is an important issue. Support your explanation with scholarly references. Submit your work in the Assignment folder no later than the end of Week 9.
Explanation / Answer
Public health is facing many challenges and one of the main problem is Infectious diseases which are now spreading geographically much faster than at any time in history.During the last five years, WHO has verified more than 1100 epidemic events worldwide.
In the modern world, with increased globalization, and rapid air travel, there is chance of wide spread of these diseases which can become a public health concern. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and avian influenza in humans have triggered major international concern, raised new scientific challenges, caused major human suffering and imposed enormous economic damage. Other emerging viral diseases such as Ebola, Marburg haemorrhagic fever and Nipah virus pose threats to global public health security and also require containment at their source due to their acute nature and resulting illness and mortality. So due to our increased travel and immigration these diseases became a thread to our public. Many cases was even found in our country which made a big fear among public. Gains in many areas of infectious disease control are seriously jeopardized by the spread of antimicrobial resistance, with extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) now a cause of great concern. And also due to insufficient supply for laboratory facilities, immunization and antidose against these infectious diseases it can spread widely. Even due to the insufficient knowledge of new diseases the public can face many issues.
These diseases can increase the mortality and morbidity rate if proper surveillance is not made at initial stage. But viruses, bacteria, and fungi can now spread around the world with greater effectiveness and speed than ever before. And when they turn up unexpectedly in new places, they catch doctors and health systems — and people's immune systems — off guard.
The key reasons for spread of infectious diseases around the world are
1) More travel, trade, and connectivity:
Due to advanced technologies we have fastest transportation facilities around tge world like jet planes, bullet trains, speed ships, cars, so now we have this modern transportation or globalization that is moving animals, humans, commodities, and pathogens around the world.
The movement of people and goods is happening at a faster rate and greater volume than at any other time.
2) Urbanization :it is s another factor for spread of these diseases.
Not only are people and goods traveling farther and at a greater volume and speed than any other time in history, but people are also more likely to live in densely populated urban environments.
More than half of the world's population now lives in cities, and just about every country on the planet is becoming more urbanized. Global health researchers have called the trend "an emerging humanitarian disaster."
Cities can be perfect breeding grounds for disease to spread. Consider the ongoing Zika outbreak in Brazil. Not only was this an old virus in a new country that caught health officials off guard but Brazil's many cities also happened to be extremely hospitable to the virus.
3)Pervasive poverty means outbreaks will be worse
When new viruses strike impoverished or weakened health systems, they have a much greater chance of thriving and killing people.
The 2014-'15 Ebola epidemic offers another illustrative example here. Every American infected with Ebola during that period survived. The same wasn't true for the affected West Africans, 11,000 of whom died.
4) Climate change:environmental factors like climate change can matter as much as — or sometimes even more than — our personal behaviors.For example, Zika, dengue, and chikungunya are all spread by the Aedes mosquito. And one of the reasons researchers think Aedes may be reaching new places —and more people — lately is climate change. (Mosquitoes thrive in warmand moist environments.)
Though there is an increase in overall outbreaks, global improvements in prevention, early detection, control and treatment are becoming more effective at reducing the number of people infected." but where we fail is due
was in strengthening public health systems globally to reduce the risk of a couple of cases turning into something much bigger and deadlier.
For example, the vector control programs that started after the WWII, Gubler pointed out, have been victims of their own success.
"Health authorities couldn't see any sense in continuing to spend a lot of money to control diseases that weren't occurring, so the programs were disbanded," he explained. "At the same time, many countries disbanded their public health infrastructure to deal with vector-borne diseases." This is another reason mosquito-borne diseases like yellow fever, dengue, and Zika are on the rise.
The money spent on public health has been in a steady free fall in the US in recent years. When health emergencies like Zika or Ebola hit, there's no emergency funding mechanism to quickly get a response in place. And at the global level, the budget of the World Health Organization has been at a standstill and not adjusted for inflation for years.
So these can be an important issue in public health so we should strengthen the public health in mitigation of these diseases through good back up plans.
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