Canadian Perspective of Health and Illness in 2020 - Essay Example

?Health And Illness in 2020: A Canadian Perspective. The world will be quite different by 2020. Each and every sector today will experience some sortof shift in trends. So will the health of people concerning various sort of illnesses and diseases. The article gives us a view of how Canada will experience a shift in health sector due to various different contributing factors. Environmental changes have already started to alter the patterns of various diseases which know as off today’ this change will be continuing in 2020 as well. Global warming is one of the major contributing factor because of which climates of various regions of planet have started to experience unusual weather changes. Places which were previously cold have now diseases of warmer climates due to movement of carriers of such diseases into these new regions because of suitable weather conditions. Toxicity diseases with unusual symptoms will start to emerge mainly eco-toxic disease in Canada due to long term exposure to chemical such as DDT and PCB’s. Apart from that diversity in population will increase as immigrants will continue to move into Canada. Effect of this has both positive and negative impacts. There will be healthier immigrants shifting into new environments but at the same time there will be some who’ll bring diseases of their native environments hence requiring extra precautionary measures to be taken. By 2020 the population dominance of Canada will be belonging to seniors and children and the major rises will be felt in three major states of Canada hence increasing inter state competition for getting highest health budget allocated. Hence we can infer from this that diseases related to old age will spike up requiring additional efforts for curing diseases. However the efforts being put in today for better health and curing illnesses will resolve occurrences of diseases related to certain type habits. But the after effects to these habits will be faced in 2020 because of there being a significant chunk of Canadian population being overweight which will lead to prevalence of diseases related to joints. People will resort to “Health Tourism” as the wait for surgeries and operation will be quite long also cure procedures for such diseases will be quite cheaper across the Indian ocean. Apart from the mentioned trends the authorities have to b e proactive and react to the predicted scenarios by taking strong steps. People all around Canada in schools, offices, on the streets should be made well aware of importance of staying fit and healthy. A prototype of a system should be created which shall integrate the medical records of people. The system of health care that we know today will be quite different in 2020 which will look into all factors including diversity, taking extra care of patients and use of new technology. Explain how health psychology can make a contribution to health promotion. Where appropriate, use eating behavior which leads to obesity as an example. Ans: Health is something which everyone desires and staying healthy throughout is a dream for everyone. Yet normally no one makes significant efforts on daily basis to live this dream. Health like other things you want comes with effort. There are many things in our daily routine which if we ignore can make significant improvement in our health and on the contrary there are things which will only take little time of our day but by doing that we can stay healthy. For knowing these things awareness is needed. Either people can be made aware directly or we can influx awareness in their minds which will subconsciously make them put in effort to stay healthy or avoid unhealthy habits . Health psychology can help us achieve this task. The purpose of Health Psychology is to create awareness among groups of population regarding health. By creating this awareness segments of population previously involved in bad health habits can take a positive step towards moving towards a healthier lifestyle which will help them have a better and secure life ahead free from diseases even disabilities. In America a lot of work has been done by health psychologists in creating awareness which lead to significant decline in number of smokers, consumption of high cholesterol foods hence leading to a decline in people suffering from lung diseases and coronary heart diseases. But this effort is not successful on everyone even after knowing that people are aware of the adverse effects of their bad health habits. Hence indicating that more efforts and work is need needed to be put in and making health psychology even more important for promotion of health. One way to eliminate this resistance experienced by fragment of population is to nip in the bud in the early ages before they develop these activities as habits for eg smoking, developing an appetite for fast food with high concentration of cholesterol. If adolescence of the nation is made aware that even though fast food tastes better it doesn’t mean that its healthy instead it resides as the opposite of healthy containing levels of cholesterol which are far more then acceptable. One can only be convinced to shift from this dietary routine to a healthy diet by making them aware of the adverse effects. Eating fast food on regular basis to extent of making it a habit ultimately will lead to a person become obese. In the early stages the mind of the person thinks that they are only getting a little fat and they can lose that weight again which they are gaining quickly. They don’t know that they have become so used to the dietary routine that they keep on following it thinking less about their health and fitness until they fall victim to Obesity. Obesity does not only bring physical restrictions for people but it also brings a number of diseases which a person sooner or later becomes a patient off. Heart failure, Heart Attack, Blood Pressure, Gallstones, Osteoarthritis, Stroke etc. are some of the diseases related to obesity. People can remain healthy if they maintain a balanced lifestyle. This can be achieved by having a scheduled and planned routine. People working in stressful environment need to be strong and should have the ability to treat sudden bad news. Men should be preferred to work in these sort of situations as they are more prone to handling worst case scenarios. Doctors and practitioners should be keen in making their patients aware about all the precautions they need to stay healthy and give them helpful tips on regular basis. If the doctor can understand their patient’s habits and instincts they can easily get them motivated and follow a healthy pattern of lifestyle. Another trend that has been observed that people belonging to lower SES are more rigid to change and if they are having bad health habits they’ll continue to follow them. This resisting behavior is mainly because of the inequality that prevails in the society. People belonging to higher SES can afford better treatment for the disease they are suffering from and get cured following the same bad health habits. Also the health level varies racially. Life expectancy levels between a white American and African-Black American is almost 6 year, this is because African-Black Americans are more prone to health risk and diseases because majority of the black population belong to the lower SES class. Until the level of medical care provided to the lower SES starts the match the level of medical care the higher SES people get this rigid and resisting behavior is going to stay there and interventions will not be of any use. Health psychology also helps in promoting health awareness by treating men and women as two completely different groups not just only on the basis of physical features but on how they feel, psychological differences, pressure withstanding abilities etc. Women although live older then men according to studies but they also get more sick then men. Making females aware about the female lifecycle processes can help them prepare and be able to cope with health issues before hand and even be able to stay away from the issues keeping themselves much healthy. Read More