Public Health and Health Promotion in Kent - Essay Example

"Public Health and Health Promotion in Kent" is an outstanding example of a paper on social and family issues. Kent County in England is characterized by a poverty rate of 23.3% of the children, meaning that 6,300 children live in poverty. The life expectancy of men and women is close to that of England’s average. This life expectancy, however, depends on the level of deprivation of the various districts within Kent. This value is lower in the most deprived areas, averaging at a value lower by 5.8 years in women and 6.7 years for men as compared to the average life expectancy in England. The average life expectancy of men is at 76 years in the most deprived areas and 82 years in the least deprived ones. Women live longer than men. They have an average life that is 80 years long in the most deprived regions of the county, and 85 years long in the least deprived areas of Kent’s districts.

The obesity levels in Kent County should be checked to avoid the number of overweight children. Obesity is also an ingredient for heart and blood diseases, among them heart attacks that can be fatal. 19.5% of the children are obese by the time they reach the age of 6. This value approximates to about 295 children, which is not a good figure in terms of the health of children. 24.7 out of 100,000 people under the age of 18 years have a hospital stay due to alcohol-specific complications. This figure is better than that of the whole of England in general and averages 8 annual stays in the hospital.

The county, however, has a high number of teenage pregnancy cases. Some of these teenagers get their children in unhealthy conditions, with a number of girls smoking cigarettes during their pregnancies. Others smoke throughout their breastfeeding period, affecting the health of the baby through the passive smoke and contaminated breast milk. This number of unhealthy teenage pregnancies is worse than for England as a country.

By 2012, the average percentage of adults that could be classified as obese was 28%. This figure shows that more than a quarter of the residents of Kent County are overweight. They need to work on their weight for the sake of their health. Obesity could be a contributor to decreasing life expectancy due to the increase in weight-related complications, such as heart attacks, strokes, and hypertension. The number of overweight people in Kent County is worse than the average for England. Out of 100,000 adults in Kent, 502 of them are involved in alcohol-related harm. This figure is better than the average of England and translates to 662 hospital stays per year. Programs have been launched to create awareness and address issues of heart attacks and drug abuse. These initiatives are meant to improve the health of the people within this county.

Health inequality is evident in this county. There is an almost equal death rate between Kent and England due to heart attack, stroke, and cancer. However, these rates have a variation between the least and most deprived areas of Kent. The most deprived regions have a death rate that is higher than the average of the county, and the least deprived ones have one that is lower than the average of the county. This trend applies to the past decade, and the deaths from cancer are more than those due to heart attacks and stroke.

There is an unequal number of hospital admissions based on the various races in Kent and England as a whole. The high percentage of Chinese emergency admissions shows that they receive little medical attention at the lower levels, and their issues end up escalating to the emergency level.

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