Risk and Public Health - Essay Example

Risk and Public Health Public Health is related with the prevention of disease and promotion of health across the whole society. It therefore requires active participation of the government as well as the society as a whole to take active participation and ensure that a collective response is developed in order to effectively achieve the health related objectives. From the perspective of risk in public health management, risk signifies the probability of harmful effects on population due to certain human activities. Within this perspective, public health therefore critically evaluates the execution of different activities and determine as to whether such activities will actually result into any potential harm to the public or not. It is however critical to understand that risks to public health are different and also require different responses from public health authorities. (Blaxter, 2010).  Risks in public health can arise from different perspectives including natural as well as men-made. Natural risks are often the results of break out of any epidemic or any other natural calamity. Risk can also rise due to the use of the medicines and their potential impact on the human health. What is also critical to understand that various behaviors, lifestyles as well as cultural factors of various groups and sub-groups can actually result into higher risk? The stratification of population and typical characteristics associated with such risks often requires a careful examination of various social factors contributing towards such risks.( Bennett, 2010).  Health related inequalities can also contribute towards the creation of such risks and how to deal with them. Health risk actions particularly involve the prevailing health inequalities in terms of how the various social classes and strata of population actually respond to various risk situations. Certain ethnic groups have higher tendencies to fall prey to different health related risks therefore the overall public health response to such risks should be tailored accordingly. From the perspective of risk in public health, there are different steps which need to be performed in order to clear assess the risks. First it is important to actually identify the hazard which could possibly have an impact on the public health. Hazard assessment is a qualitative exercise to actually assess the adverse impacts of the same. Hazard assessment also requires to study the strength of evidence regarding the possible impacts any public health related issue can have on the public. For example, for smoking, risk hazards would be quantified to assess as to what could be the potential impacts of the same on the health of the individual, environment as well as other persons coming in direct contact with smokers.( Bunton,& Macdonald, 2002).  It is critical to note that the overall concept of risk is related with the concept of likelihood or chance. From the public health point of view, risks therefore need to be considered from the degree of chances and based upon this assessment of probability, the overall response of public health is determined. However common biases as well as misperception about the risks can actually lead to the different biases resulting into inadequate response in managing any risk whether serious or not. Dose Response analysis is also performed in order to assess as to how the dose will actually result into desired effect. This is relatively complex concept and procedure to perform and the overall preparation for this part of the risk assessment is done through scientific research studied on animals etc. Public health authorities also need to ensure that the genetic differences in individuals are also considered because the overall response of individuals may be different based upon genetic makeup of the individuals. Exposure quantification is another step which is administered in order to ascertain how much containment will be required by the public. Various factors such as ethnic background, life styles etc are taken into consideration in order to quantify the exposure. (Earle, 2007).  Another important issue in terms of risks in public health is the overall communication of the risks to the relevant stakeholders. It also requires assessing as to what risks are important and what are its different characteristics which make the risk important for the public policy issues. The interdependencies of the risk factors as well as determining which factors are more important to be taken care of needs to be assessed. Public health related authorities need to assess the interdependencies of the risks and design a mechanism to ensure that risks are adequately identified and assessed at all the level. Besides all the stakeholders should be communicated and intimated for the potential risks and how to deal with them.( Scambler, 2008).  Sociological critique of health surveillance and screening Sociological research, through empirical work, suggests that the interaction of class, professional interests, gender and other factors contribute towards the development of knowledge for the disease and its treatment. Medical screening as well as surveillance also therefore demands sociological inquiry however, it has been suggested that well-developed sociology of health screening and surveillance is missing. One of the important issues is the role of information in terms of surveillance and screening and is considered as immaterial in terms of the presence of information technology.( Bury, & Gabe, 2004).  Medical screening involves conscious screening of a target population and therefore involves conscious screening of people in those groups which are likely to develop certain diseases and which are not. Health screening and surveillance therefore is relatively different from the traditional methods. It has also been suggested that the sociology of screening should not be confused with the sociology of diagnosis as two are relatively different concepts with different degree of impact on the target population. In countries like England, the screening and surveillance is open to all groups of population as compared to other countries where specific groups are targeted. The screening process however, is often targeted based upon the diseases rather than making them wholesale screening initiatives. What is also important to understand that besides government being involved in the overall screening programs, private organizations are also offering the same? However, the involvement of private organizations in the screening process automatically discards such groups of population which are unable to afford such screening. NHS has also issued guidelines in terms of the overall pros and cons of screening by the private organizations.( Orme, 2007).  From the sociological perspective, an importance aspect of this is the attendance as it signifies good citizenship behavior. Attendance of screening activities has been associated with what is called moral obligations and this is often viewed as embodiment of female bodies. It has been suggested that females should respect their bodies and screening becomes moral obligation for the women to actually look after and respect their bodies. It has been therefore indicates that an individual women’s participation into the screening is more than just the diseases prevention as it also addresses her sociological and psychological outlook also. (Duncan, 2007).  Another important and related issue is the perception of the technologies used for the screening and surveillance of the disease. It has been suggested that an important sociological perspective is as to how women actually perceives what role these technologies can play in terms of improving the overall health outcomes. The screening has also been labeled as constant surveillance of healthy patients identified within the context of new temporal spaces of illness. (Nettleton, 2006). It has also been suggested that the sociology of screening as well as surveillance has been limited. First, it has been explored under different sub-groups of sociology making it a difficult concept to be synthesized. The focus on health and technology has virtually redefined the way health and screening is being viewed. The population based screening is based upon the involvement of different stakeholders groups including patients, medical professionals, society as well as the government as a whole. What is however also important to understand that screening and sociology of health surveillance suggests a larger role of professionals. It has been argued that in modern society, professionals actually identify sick, mentally ill and other classifications of the humans. As such these professionals act on behalf of administrative state and participation in the screening is considered as compliance with the normal behavior. It has however been argued that the sociology of screening as well as surveillance should not be limited to the individual experiences. This individual experience is often limited to the actual or potential patients as well as the healthcare professionals. What is also critical is the infrastructure of the screening also which provides relative power to the healthcare professionals to function on behalf of the administrative state.( . (Duncan, 2007).  In modern society, the professionals therefore determine as to what normal behavior is and how to achieve the compliance of the same. From the sociological perspective, this is considered as iron cage where professionals actually perform the task of surveillance with the help of health related information technology.( Nettleton, 2006).  Another aspect of this is based upon the use of non-capitalist activities in a capitalist society. it has been suggested that doctors and health care professionals actually perform the functions including that of surveillance and screening which are not directly linked with the process of making money. Health Inequalities in Britain Defining health inequalities may be difficult as it varies from country to country and depends upon the overall policy emphasis on the issue. What is critical to note however that from the perspective of Britain, the overall response of the government has changed over the period of time. During 1980s and 1990s, health inequalities as social issue fell out of favor of government however it now forms one of the most important social issues to be dealt with due to different factors arising in the recent past. (Dowler, & Spencer, 2007).  UK has taken efforts to thoroughly understand and explore the inequalities in the health and various initiatives such as Black Report are considered as important contributions towards the understanding of how health inequalities prevail within UK. Health inequalities are defined based upon three important criteria i.e. individuals, population groups as well as groups occupying unequal positions within the society. This therefore indicates that health inequalities cover a wider range of activities and issues which need to be dealt with in order to reduce the gaps between different stakeholders. This is also important from the perspective of the fact that health is viewed as the property of both the individuals as well as the society. The wider level of health inequalities therefore is also explored from the perspective of individuals as well as the society. It has also been empirically proved that social networks as well as social groups have direct impact on the health outcomes therefore health inequalities persist within the social groups, the overall cohesion of different social groups may be distributed across the whole society. (Graham, 2007).  Though medical and biological reasons are also important contributors of disease however social classes, income levels, gender, sexual preferences as well as employment, housing and other related social issues also contribute towards the health and health related issues. The overall policy response therefore should not be limited to taking care of the health related measures but steps should also be taken at the society level too.( Roberts, 2012).  Health inequalities are persistent in UK and EU are diverse in nature with research suggesting that the health inequalities vary according to the socio-economic status of the individuals. For example, mortality rates are relatively higher in those groups where the socio-economic status of the group is relatively lower. What is also important to note that these inequalities in mortality rates actually start at the early age and continue till the old age suggesting that if socio-economic status of the individuals does not change they are constantly facing the risk of the higher levels of mortality?( Graham, 2009) Inequalities are also based upon the gender with men facing relatively higher level of health inequalities. Morbidity rates are also higher with persons having low level of education, occupation as well as levels of income. This outlines a relatively larger level of health inequalities prevailing according to different socio-economic status of the individuals. These inequalities are really important from the perspective of how public policy institutions deal with this issue of health inequality. There has been one particular group which has been affected recently due to the overall health inequalities. United Kingdom is going through economic recession and higher level of unemployment levels. It has been suggested that people affected mostly by the economic recession are facing health inequalities. The impact of the austerity measures taken by the government is also contributing towards the health inequalities. The number of persons receiving State support for their health related issues. It is therefore critical that a change of focus should be made in order to increase the social integration of the population groups facing health inequalities due to economic constraints.( Platt, 2011).  It has also been highlighted that the persons badly affected by the economic recession tend to find employment in low paid work with higher level of turnover. Higher staff turnover further reduces their chances to get any health related support from their organizations and resultantly such groups face higher level of inequality. The resulting behavioral changes in the people facing tough socio-economic situations also result into change in behaviors which further creates health related issues and result into adverse health outcomes. (Bartley,2004).  Those who are affected by the economic recession tend to have higher tendencies to commit suicide because of the relative health inequalities they face. Besides, this group may also have a higher tendency to attract infectious diseases such as HIV and TB besides having some short term and long term health impacts due to their inability to afford quality health services owing to lack of resources. All learning outcomes Public Health has become one of the most important domains for the policy related issues as it relates directly with the society. Over the period of time, it has become clear that health is not just limited to overcoming medical related factors but also requires a comprehensive policy making from the social perspective also. Public health has its risk dimensions also under which there is a probability of unwanted occurrences and requires the policy intervention in order to properly address such issues. From the perspective of risk, it is critical first to assess the overall level of hazards to various individuals or groups. It has been suggested that individuals belonging to certain ethnic groups tend to have higher probability of health risks as compared to other groups. Hazard assessment not only requires as to how to assess the overall evidence but also requires to comprehensively address the issue. Risk is also a diverse concept and each risk is not considered as equal or having same degree of risk. The impact of various lifestyles, behaviors as well as particular socio-economic status has on various health related risks. It has also to be communicated to all the stakeholders involved and public health authorities need to ensure that all the risks are comprehensively communicated to all the stakeholders. It is critical to understand risk should be assessed based upon the socio-economic situation of various groups. The link between the health risks and the socio-economic backgrounds need to be assessed. Medical screening as well as surveillance can reduce the health related risks in public health domain however; it has different sociological dimensions also. Health screening and surveillance is often associated with the voluntary behavior in which it is expected that individuals and various population groups will actually participate. Females are also considered to respond to screening positively because women are considered to have a moral obligation to respect and take care of their bodies. There is also a critical difference between the sociology of the screening and the sociology of diagnosis which is relatively larger and bigger concept to cover different aspects of overall health outcomes. Another important of sociological critique of the health screening is actually based upon the interaction between the technology as well as the health. Increasingly, it has been the fact that involvement of technology has become a major contributor towards assessment of health. However, the overall perception of the technology and how it can actually contribute towards the health related outcomes for the individuals. It has also been suggested that screening and health related activities actually offer medical health professionals a control over different aspects of health. It has been suggested that the health care professionals actually act on behalf of the administration and virtually control difference temporal spaces in order to reduce the overall choices available to the individuals. Sociological critique is also based upon the way health is delivered in a capitalist society in a non-capitalist manner as doctors and personnel involved act voluntarily for actions such as screening. It is critical to note that screening and surveillance may also create health related inequalities where one group may be targeted where others are left unattended. What is critical to note however that certain groups belonging to certain social classes tend to have higher health related risks whereas other groups are not? As such surveillance creates health inequalities. Over the period of time, health related inequalities have become common and addressing the issue has now become one of the top priorities of the government. This renewed interest has become more important especially after addressing the health related inequalities became non-issue for policy makers during 1980s and 1990s. The rising level of health inequalities may be attributed to different factors including income levels and overall socio-economic status of various groups. It has been empirically suggested that certain groups may be more susceptible to different health inequalities. One common group which has been badly affected by the health inequalities are those who are facing economic hardships due to economic recession. Economic recession has resulted into loss of jobs and down gradation of peoples’ overall living standards. This has created wider level of health inequalities as people cannot afford to have private healthcare whereas NHS has been over-burdened. Higher level of unemployment and work in informal and temporary jobs does not allow employees to receive any health related support from their organizations and resultantly recession is creating wider level of health inequalities among British population. References 1. Bartley, M. (2004). Health Inequality: An Introduction To Theories, Concepts, And Methods. Cambridge, Uk, Polity Press. 2. Bennett, P. (2010). Risk Communication And Public Health. Oxford, Oxford University Pres 3. Blaxter, M. (2010). Health. Cambridge, UK, Polity. 4. Bunton, R., & Macdonald, G. (2002). Health Promotion: Disciplines, Diversity, And Development. New York, Routledge. 5. Bury, M., & Gabe, J. (2004). The Sociology Of Health And Illness: A Reader. London, Routledge. 6. Dowler, E., & Spencer, N. (2007). Challenging Health Inequalities: From Acheson To 'Choosing Health'. Bristol, Policy Press. 7. Duncan, P. (2007). Critical Perspectives On Health. Basingstoke [England], Palgrave Macmillan. 8. Earle, S. 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