Benefits Of Population Health

A ban on sugary drinks would abate pricy health care bills. When people digest empty calories,

More than 35% of American adults are obese and as a consequence, are at increased risks for health issues such as heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes ("Overweight & Obesity"). The U.S. taxpayer is supplementing much of the cost to treat obesity related health issues through public health programs such as Medicare and Medicaid ("Economic Costs"). A positive externality will occur in the form of decreased health care expenditures on Medicare and Medicaid. The U.S. government should impose an excise tax on soda and other beverages that contain sugar. Consumers who drink excess sugary beverages impose a negative internality on their health; as well as imposing a negative externality on the American

Consumers think that it is awful that they have to pay for someone else’s health care while that person may just as well be drinking twelve cans of soda daily and continually destroying their health. (“Should there be a”, n.d.) These consumers are hoping the soda tax will encourage people to stop abusing soda and at the same time lowering the obesity rate in our country, which now about 66% of our population. Some commenters also said that the government is doing the right thing to try and stop this

There is no proper definition of population health. However, population health is broadly described as the distribution of health outcomes within a population. The main focus of population health is to create health equity to promote health and wellness within a population. The components and attributes of population health are described in a figure 1-1 as the chronic care model (Nash et al., 2011). Population health is important to achieve a goal of improving the United States healthcare system to create an epidemic of health and wellness. The book describes in figure 1-2 as the main four pillars of populating health, including chronic care management, quality & safety, health policy, and public health to achieve common goal (Nash et

The author’s for the article “Regional Differences in Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Intake among US Adults” are Sohyun Park, PhD; Lisa C. McGuire, PhD; and Deborah A. Galuska, PhD. All of the author’s credentials are the same which is a Doctor of Philosophy, which is short abbreviated as PhD where a person who attains a doctorate of philosophy is awarded the academic title of a doctor. Sohyun Park is also an epidemiologist, Lisa McGuires is the lead epidemiologist and Deborah Galuska is an associate director for science, division of nutrition, physical activity and obesity. I believe that the author Deborah Galuska is a credible source for nutrition because first and foremost she has a PhD, and is also an Associate Director for Science for Division

Sweetness has been the obsession that affected humans for many years. It is the satisfaction that people seem to like, however, there might be a downfall to this addiction with sugar. There have been studies that claimed that the obesity rates in America have increased dramatically for over the past 20 years (Eatwell.com, 2012). Obesity rates have increased by double that it has made it to the top three health concerns in America. Experts are trying to find out what causes obesity. Moreover, there are studies that linked with drinking large amounts of sugar-sweetened beverages that a child can risk obesity. This might possibly prove that obesity can be caused by sugar-sweetened food.

With a growing epidemic of obesity in America, some states and lawmakers have resorted to taking unconventional measures in order to counter the growing issue. Many legislators are debating the effectiveness of a “fat tax” would be on limiting the consumption of soda, high fat foods, and high sugar foods, and ultimately reducing the rate of morbidity and mortality due to obesity. The idea is that long term consumption of high fat, high sugar foods and drinks lead to many health problems, so making them more expensive and less accessible should decrease the health issues related to their consumption.

Over the past few years the soda tax policy has become increasingly widespread, and several cities have taken a multifaceted approach to not only aim to improve public health, but to also raise total revenue to help these communities. These excise taxes are being imposed on cities like Philadelphia, which is “the poorest of the 10 largest US cities, and for many years, one of the unhealthiest” (Lavizzo- Mourey). Philadelphia’s mayor, Jim Kenney decided that a $1.5 per ounce soda tax would be efficient to restore the city’s economy and improve the public’s health. The city planned to raise approximately $92 million per year, with a goal of $7.6 million a month in tax revenue; however, city officials predicted that only $2.3 million will come through in the first collection (Vargas). A month after the tax went into full effect, the state of the economy went downhill and these communities and small

However, the tax has been a concerned of many people. Some, especially those in the health field, welcome the tax. Yet, this tax is criticized by other people who are in the business of selling food and drinks with high sugar. It has enormous potential effects on retailers and soft drink producers, because tax on sugar will increase prices of foods and drinks with a high level of sugar, and it also will lead to increase the costs of production for business. According to the law of demand, as price rises, consumers willing and able to buy less, the quantity demands falls. Also, the law of supply shows that a rise in the costs of production will lead to a decrease in supply. Hence, business of sugary foods and drinks will decrease the supply, and business will reduce sales. In addition, Price elasticity of demand indicates that the demands of a good is affected by change in the price of the good. (Anderton, A., 2008) A report found that the price elasticity of the demand for drinks with high sugar is -1.6 (Colchero, M., 2015). Thus, the report shows that the price elasticity of demand for drinks with high sugar is elastic, which means the change in price of sugar will lead to high change in demand of sugar. Consequently, through the tax to increase price can effectively influence the consumption of sugar, which lead to reduced consumption. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that a single way of a tax would be effective in reducing sugar intakes. Government involves restrictions on price, promotions and advertisement, product reforestation and portion size reduction, implemented in parallel is likely more

In this study, we conducted multivariate linear regression analysis to examine the association between intake of different types of beverages and obesity outcomes in children and adults. We found out that, SSB intake in both children and adults had the significant contribution to obesity outcomes. This positive association is consistent with previous studies reporting a strong positive dose-response relationship between intake of SSB and adiposity among Australian and Danish children (12, 21), and positive association between SSB intake and obesity in adults (5, 6). A recent study aiming to investigate factors related to SSB consumption in Australia also pointed out that obese people were more likely to drink SSB than people in normal

The population health factors is a subject of extensive discussion within American health care system, nonetheless, few comprehend the bearing to modern health care environment.

Hungary added a 10-forint (Around US $0.04) on these products to help pay for the country’s healthcare costs. France also added a tax of 1 euro per canned drink in 2011 to help pay for health care costs and fight obesity. Since these taxes were so recent, there’s no way of showing a long term effect on obesity yet. (Villanueva) If the United States were to impose a 1 cent per 12-ounce pop, that would estimate to $1.5 billion dollars per year that can be used to lower our increasing health care costs. (Jacobson and

Ways that health advocates are attacking the accessibility factor include state and local bans on SSBs in schools. Guidelines would also limit the availability of SSBs in meetings and events. An example of this kind of legislation is in New York. In 2012 it was proposed that all SSBs sold must be in a container no larger than 16 ounces in food service establishments. To attack the affordability factor of SSBs, the most common plan is to add a tax on all SSBs. So far no city or state has passed a tax large enough to considerably change the demand for these beverages. A large tax has not yet been passed because of the uncertainty of how it will affect the health of the economy. Taxing SSBs may have unforeseen consequences in that they may to switch to other, untaxed, calorie-dense food and beverages. When assuming that consumers act rationally, the tax on SSBs could reduce the intake of sugary sweetened beverages and contribute to long-term health benefits and potentially saving in medical cost (Zhen, Brissette, and Ruff

There has also been evidence of a link between SSBs consumption, obesity and heart diseases that were examined in The Nurses’ Health Study. This study examined 90,000 women over an eight year span. Results indicated that, the nurses who had one or more SSB a day were twice as more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those who rarely drank them. Additionally, for those who drank 2 or more daily had a 40 percent risk of heart attacks or death associated with heart diseases compared to those who rarely drank SSBs

“Sin” taxes have been proven as a way to curtail known unhealthy behaviors. Soda taxes are most accepted if taxes collected are earmarked for health specific programs (Chaufin et al., 2010). The cons are the consumers are the voters and taxing may equate to loss of votes, taxing may not be equitable to individuals that do not have the disease, and finally, an undue burden may be placed on lower socio-economic demographics as these groups often have limited access to food vendors that primarily sale what would be considered taxed foods. Though these sin taxes are proven to work well with tobacco and alcohol consumption, altering a persons’ diet needs to be more individualized and realistically approached. Lower socio-economic individuals should not feel added burden as a tax; which would be a negative impact (Kuchar et al., 2005). Legality issues are regarded as low, but would require state government support to enact. This would likely not be popularly accepted and have a minimal impact for any increase in tax rate.