The Most Important Indicator of Health Status - Essay Example

Health science and medicine. Introduction: Health is a condition of overall mental, physical and collective welfare and not just the non-existence of disease or illness (Word Health Organization 1946). There are various indicators of health status these include total fertility rate, life expectancy at birth, infant mortality rate, incidence of smear positive tuberculosis, number of polio cases reported, stillbirth rates, percentage of obese adults, percentage of underweight children, equality of child survival and HIV prevalence (Skolnik 2007). Indicators are useful instruments for checking and sharing serious information about people’s health. They help in supporting preparation, for instance, classifying priorities or targeting sources, and for monitoring advancement towards civic goals. They assist to engross partners into achieving communal and cooperative feats by helping to create awareness of health problems. Moreover, indicators assist inform law makers. For example, in Nigeria considering that HIV prevalence is higher compared to the rest of the world, the government decided to educate sexually active secondary school students about how they could avoid contracting STDs (Fawole et al. 1999). Another example is of America, where the less educated (people without high school diplomas) White Americans have a declining life expectancy because of a lack of health insurance, chain smoking and drug overdoses. To improve the life expectancy the US government has once again shifted its focus towards education (Tavernise 2012). Likewise, UK’s government strategy was shaped by the health life expectancy during 1980 till 1996 What is the most important indicator of health status? I believe that out of all of the aforementioned indicators of health status, life expectancy index is the most important. The life expectancy index determines the comparative accomplishment of a country in terms of life expectancy at birth. The lowest limiting value is deducted from the actual value of life expectancy at birth, and the answer is then divided by the difference between the maximum and the minimum values found for the life expectancy indicator. Why is life expectancy index the most important indicator of health status? Some people might argue against selecting life expectancy indicator as the most important health indicator stating that it is the quality of life which matters and not the length. Life expectancy index does not directly measure the quality of life all it does is provide an educated guess regarding a nation’s average age. It is true that life expectancy indicator does not directly measure the quality of life (Robine, Romieu & Cambois 1999). However, one must remember that often the quality of life determines life’s duration (Robine & Ritchie 1991). Imagine being stressed out all the time, with minimal nutritious food and suffering from an incurable disease like AIDS. As a result, one’s age will decrease due to the “wear and tear” the body has endured during the course of its life. When one dies earlier the life expectancy index will decrease slightly hence proving that it indirectly does take into consideration one’s quality of life. It can be said that life expectancy index data is available for available for only around 180 different countries whereas the data regarding other indicators is available for around 194 or 197 countries therefore if life expectancy index is chosen as the most important indicator of health status it will never provide information regarding as many countries as other indicators could hence making it less useful. Although, this is true but the calculation of life expectancy index is being done repeatedly on an annual basis since the year 1994 whereas all other indicators of health status have an inconsistent periodicity (frequency with which indicator is measured) or their periodicity is equal to the year when the indicator was calculated for the last time. Consequently, although country coverage for life expectancy index is less, the frequency of measurement and the year when the last time the index was measured compensates for the lack of country coverage. Furthermore, it has been ensured that the health organization responsible for provision of data needed to calculate life expectancy index is reliable and trustworthy (Wold 2008). This organization is called United Nations which under its program United Nations Development Program (UNDP) produces the report called Human Development Report (HDR) (United Nations Organization 2011). This report has reliable information and acts as a source of data for calculation of life expectancy index. Reasons for choosing life expectancy indicator as the most important indicator of health status Unlike other health indicators Life expectancy index is not focusing on one aspect of the human life. Instead, it is quantifying that aspect of life which is determined by various other factors. This quantified aspect of life is the average number of years an individual lives. The lifespan of a person is influenced by tragic events or diseases. Meanwhile, the other indicators of health status tend to focus on only one aspect of a health life. This aspect can be a chronic disease, a frequent incident (such as the death of a newborn in the developing countries) or chances of reproducing. For instance, there is a health indicator called HIV prevalence. This indicator is an excellent representation of health in those countries where HIV AIDS is known to be widespread. Countries like Nigeria can use HIV prevalence to measure the health status (UNICEF 2003). However, countries like Switzerland cannot use HIV prevalence to measure health status because the country has very few HIV patients. In Switzerland’s case an indicator of health status should be such that it focuses on the overall quality of life rather than being related to one specific disease like AIDS or Tuberculosis. Secondly, life expectancy is a summary of mortality for people belonging to various age groups and so not only does life expectancy allow one to compare health status between countries but also compare the health of one age group to another and find how the healthcare and lifestyle were different between the people belonging to those age groups. Moreover, life expectancy measures mortality which is understood by any rational person (Patrick 2010). Furthermore, unlike most other indicators of health status life expectancy rate used for calculating life expectancy index can be used for calculating Human Development Index (HDI) which is a measure of how developed any country is (Sagar & Najam 1998). HDI is used for classifying countries as high human developed, medium human developed or low human developed (Mahbub-ul-Haq & Sen 1990). Therefore, one can state that life expectancy is a great indicator of health status in both developing and developed countries since it is being used by the United Nations Development Program for the calculation of a highly acceptable measure of development which takes into consideration the overall health of any nation as a part of development (Nielsen 2011). Role of life expectancy index in describing the health status of low and high income countries People in the developing countries usually live less long than those in the developed countries (Mathers et al. 2000). There are various reasons for this and the major ones are regarding deterioration of health. Using the life expectancy index the difference between the duration of lives and hence the quality of a healthy life can be demonstrated clearly between the high-income developed countries and the relatively low income developing countries. However, since high income countries have almost the same life expectancy index it becomes difficult to find differences in health status between these countries using life expectancy index. To overcome this problem the life expectancy can be converted into other indicators of health such as health life expectancy which takes into account how life was, during the elderly years, for an average person. Conclusion: Life expectancy is a substitute summarized measure of the mortality of any population (Silcocks, Jenner & Reza 2001). Currently, health authorities must attempt to decrease inequalities in health. Although, life expectancy index has limitations such as country coverage it is utilized as a tool for not only finding the duration and hence the quality of life across the world but also determine (by being used for calculation of HDI) how developed a country is. This easy to understand and all-inclusive measure of health is a brilliant indicator of health status. Works Cited Fawole, IO, Asuzu, MC, Oduntan, SO & Brieger, WR 1999, 'A school-based AIDS education programme for secondary school students in Nigeria: a review of effectiveness', Health Education Research, vol 14, no. 5, pp. 675-683. Mahbub-ul-Haq & Sen, AK 1990, 'United Nations Human Development Report', Formal, United Nations Development Program, United Nations, ISBN: 0-19-506481-X, Oxford University Press, New York. Mathers, CD, Sadana, R, Salomon, JA, Murray, CJ & Lopez, AD 2000, 'World health Report 2000', General, World Health Organization, United Nations, 92 4 156201 3 , Delmar Publishers, New York. Nielsen, L 2011, 'Classification of countries based on their level of development: How it is done and how it could be done.', Working paper, Research and Publications, International Monetary Fund, JEL Classification Numbers: O10, O15, O19, IMF, Washington, DC. Patrick, JF 2010, 'Calculating life expectancy and infant mortality rates', Educational , Research & Developement, London Health Observatory, 921828378, LHO, London. Robine, JM & Ritchie, K 1991, 'Healthy life expectancy: evaluation of global indicator of change in population health', British Medical Journal, vol 302, no. 6774, pp. 458-460. Robine, J-M, Romieu, I & Cambois, E 1999, 'Health expectancy indicators', Bulletin of the World Health Organization, vol 77, no. 2, pp. 181-185. Sagar, AD & Najam, A 1998, 'The humandevelopment index: a critical review', Ecological Economics, vol 25, no. 3, pp. 249-264. Silcocks, PBS, Jenner, DA & Reza, R 2001, 'Life expectancy as a summary of mortality in a population: statistical considerations and suitability for use by health authorities', Journal of Epidemiol Community Health, vol 55, no. 1, pp. 38-43. Skolnik, R 2007, Essentials of global health, 1st edn, Jones and Barlett Publishers, New Jersey. Tavernise, S 2012, 'Reversing Trend, Life Span Shrinks for Some Whites.', New York Times, 21 September 2012, p. A1. UNICEF 2003, At a glance: Nigeria, viewed 16 October 2012, . United Nations Organization 2011, 'Human Development Report', Formal, United Nations Development Program, United Nations Organization, 10: 0230363318, Palgrave Macmillan, New York. Wold, C 2008, Health indicators: A reveiw of reports currently in use, viewed 15 October 2012, . Word Health Organization 1946, 'Preamble to the Constitution of the World Health Organization as adopted by the International Health Conference', Official Records of the World Health Organization, World Health Organization, New York. Total words: 1740. Read More