Predominance of Infection Diseases in Poor Countries - Essay Example

Reflective Journal Name Institution Date Reflective Journal Why Poor Countries have a Predominance of Infection Diseases as opposed to the Lifestyle related Diseases of Wealthy Countries and the Reason the Global Health Inequalities Exist Working on this reflective journal helped me discover that infectious disease exist and persist for social and economical reasons that enable microorganisms and parasites to take advantage of changes within the behavioral and physical environment and this is why poor countries have a predominance of infection diseases as opposed to the lifestyle related diseases of wealthy countries. Before, I had no idea the different types of diseases predominant in poor and wealthy countries. Through this reflective journal, I discovered that infectious diseases are mostly associated with poverty while lifestyle diseases are associated with wealth. The bottom line is that the economic level of the society has a big effect on the type of diseases the society. When was I growing up, I never thought that poverty can have any relationship with infectious diseases. In my family we always had enough food for everyone and thus no one in my family suffered any disease allied to malnutrition and neither did I have any clue that malnutrition lowers a human’s immune systems and hence making one more susceptible to infectious diseases. For example, I was not aware that poverty results to malnutrition which is a major cause of infectious diseases. The connection is that the individuals in poor countries find it hard to afford food because of high food prices. During my research when writing this reflective journal, I came across various research studies that indicate that poor countries are vulnerable to infectious diseases mostly because poor people cannot afford enough food and balanced diet. When the prices of food increases, poor people preserve calorie intake at the expense of nutrients and this increases their susceptibility to infectious disease, mostly through lowering their immunity. Additionally, increase in the cost of food also increases the rate of stunting among susceptible populations, mostly in some cultures, among women and children. Prolonged malnutrition during childhood, whether from malabsorption, chronic parasitic infection, insufficient food intake or, more frequently, a combination of all three factors increases the probability of unceasing diseases emerging at an earlier stage in later life, other conditions that predispose to infectious diseases. Additionally, I discovered that poverty is likely to lower discretionary spending and this includes health care. Likewise, this increases susceptibility to infectious disease. Similarly, I have never thought of any connection between lifestyle diseases and affluence. Generally, the society I grew up in was a bit well up and people did not lack enough food. Most parents could afford enough food for their children and since most of them are educated and thus provided balanced diet to their children. However, while I was growing up, my parents constantly brought us snacks and soft drinks, and thus we could not feed on freshly prepared food regularly. This was a common thing in the society as we grew up and also grownups were not an exemption to that. Additionally people most of use never took part in physical activities because we had house helps to do that and instead of walking, a car was always available to take us to school and whenever we wanted. Through doing this assignment, I have discovered that things like diet and reduced physical activities are a major contributing factors to lifestyle diseases. I am now able to relate why my uncle who was obese and I never got to see him work out and had a habit of overeating was recently diagnosed as having a coronary heart disease and diabetes as well. It is obvious that his diabetic condition and his heart disease are lifestyle diseases because they resulted from the lifestyle my uncle was living. This is an experience I can relate to many people coming from rich suburbs. On the contrary, I have watched news and read of many incidents where children coming from poor countries often succumb due to infectious diseases. From numerous readings, the infectious diseases result because the people in poor countries are not able to access the required health facilities, cannot afford adequate food and balanced diet and thus malnutrition and also their living conditions encourage thriving of parasites and microorganisms because of factors such as lack of clean drinking water and poor sanitation. Based on the book (Imagining health problems as social issues; In Second opinion: An introduction to health sociology by Germov, J., 2009), health is a social problem because social determinants of health include social and economic conditions and distribution of social determinants of health among the population has an effect on the health status of individual and group differences. The social determinants of health are the risk factors present within an individual’s living and working conditions, for instance poverty, income level, and wealth. All these factors influence the risk for a disease, or susceptibility to disease (Germov, 2009). While working on this assignment I was able to connect health as a social problems as the reason for infectious diseases being more prevalent in poor countries as compared to wealthy countries. This is because poverty is regarded as a leading factor in infectious diseases. Infectious diseases are also referred to as diseases of poverty and illustrate the close relationship between poverty and poor health (Germov, 2009). Whereas poverty directly causes infectious diseases, the infectious diseases also perpetuate and aggravate poverty through depleting national health and financial resources. For instance, malaria reduces GDP growth by about 1.3 percent within some poor countries, and through causing deaths of many people within these countries (Singh, 2008). Likewise, AIDS alone threatens “the economies, social structures, and political stability of entire societies. Infectious diseases are more predominant in poor countries because people in poor countries lack enough finances or appropriate infrastructure to spend on healthcare because most of them have low income and thus lack adequate money to take care of their medical requirements, population in poor countries is high as compared to wealthy countries and thus this results to congestion and unclean living conditions with manifested by lack of safe and clean drinking water/food and this makes it hard to prevent the fast spread of infectious diseases within poor countries (Bygbjerg, 2012). More importantly, I found out that in wealthy countries there is high level of awareness as compared to low awareness level in poor countries due to lack of education among individuals within the lower economic group. Contrary to wealthy countries, poor countries have inadequate mechanisms of preventing spread of infectious diseases and most people lack basic sanitation facilities such as clean toilets and thus making it difficult for people to practice necessary hygiene for stopping rapid spread of infectious disease. While wealthy countries have systems for checking spread of infectious diseases while poor countries are not able to implement systems to check the spread of infectious disease since they lack means of checking the presence and increase of micro-organisms harboring infections, for instance, mosquitoes and other microorganisms and parasites. More importantly, unlike in wealthy countries, people within poor countries are prone to poor nutrition and hence they become more vulnerable to infectious diseases (World Health Organization, 2011). This reflective journal also made me discover that lifestyle diseases are diseases perceived to result from increased wealth within a society and thus are more prevalent in wealthy countries. The reason the lifestyle diseases are not predominant in poor countries is because they are causes by factors attributed to wealth. For instance, studies indicate that US which is a wealthy country the population-attributable risk of physical activity is responsible for 12 percent of type 2 diabetes and 22 percent of heart disease, in addition to considerable levels shares other lifestyle diseases. Additionally, that urbanization in wealthy countries greatly influences eating habits of people. The eating habits in wealthy countries involve snacking on foods with high fat and starch content. People in affluent countries also consume meat and dairy products a lot, in addition to consuming refined, processed and commercially made foods instead of fresh foods prepared locally during eating time (Sarah, 2010). Through this assignment I found out that these inequalities exist because in poor countries there is unavailability of things such as safe and reliable water supplies, housing conditions are poor, inadequate accessibility to medical services, endemic disease within some poor countries and people feeding of diets with inadequate calories/protein. On the contrary, the wealthy countries have good housing conditions, safe water supplies, adequate food to eat, and advanced medical services that are easily accessible (Ambrus, 2010). By writing this reflective journal I have developed the Graduate Attribute sharing what I have with the less privileged and empowering them. For example, if I shared what I have with people coming from poor families and found ways to empower them, I would uplift their living standards which will go a long way in improving their health because their poverty could be a key contributing factor to their ill health. Through this module, I have learned that empowering and sharing with the less privileged can greatly help in improving health status of the society. This assignment has therefore assisted me in understanding the value “sharing and empowering with the less fortunate” and thus I will apply this knowledge and gained attributes in the workforce in future. References Ambrus, J. (2010). Nutrition and Infectious Diseases in Developing Countries and Problems of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. Exp Biol Med. Vol. 229 no. 6 464-472. Bygbjerg, C. (2012). Double Burden of Non-communicable and Infectious Diseases in Developing Countries. Vol. 337 no. 6101 pp. 1499-1501. Germov, J. (2009). Imagining health problems as social issues. In Second opinion: An introduction to health sociology (4th ed). South Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Sarah, B. (2010). 15-Year Study Links Fast Food to Obesity. London: The Guardian. Singh, S. A. (2008). Diseases of Poverty and Lifestyle, Well-Being and Human Development. Mens Sana Monographs. Vol. 6(1), 187-225. Read More