Factors That Influence Health Status

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a major cause of death and disability in the United States among adults. More than one-half of all deaths were caused by heart disease, cancer or

Access to Medical Care Services – The CDC states that determinants of health are “factors that contribute to a person’s current state of health” Teitelbaum & Wilensky, p.124, 2017) The biggest factor to the current state of an individual’s health is access to medical care. Without medical care services health issues will linger as they will be put off and never addressed until the issue becomes serious.

Health determinants are the factors that can have a positive or negative impact on a person’s health. Many things can affect how healthy we are, from a complex interplay between macro to molecular influence to influences from society (for example, the prevalence of drug and alcohol use), to individual factors such as genetic make-up. Education, employment, income, lifestyle, psychosocial and physiological factors can also influence a person’s health and wellbeing. Health can also be significantly affected, and modified to some extent, by the quality and timeliness of the health care services we receive, including preventative health care such as education, screening and immunization.

Most people do not identify that cardiovascular disease is the primary cause of death and has the most modifiable risk factors to prevent cardiovascular disease.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the most common cause of mortality worldwide, especially in developed countries. But they are also largely preventable, and many studies have tried to clarify the related risk factors, and what could be done to avoid them.

Many factors combine together to affect the health of individuals and communities (The determinants of health. n.d.) Whether people are healthy or not, is determined by their circumstances and environment (The determinants of health. n.d.) To a large extent, factors such as where we live, the state of our environment, genetics, our income and education level, and our relationships with friends and family all have considerable impacts on health, whereas the more commonly considered factors such as access and use of health care services often have less of an impact (The determinants of health. n.d.).

Atherosclerosis is almost worldwide. Although it is hard to estimate how common atherosclerosis is, almost all adults have various parts of the illness. Cardiovascular disease is the single most common cause of illness and death in the developed country accounting for one in three of all deaths! Heart attacks due to coronary artery disease and strokes due to carotid artery disease are responsible for more deaths than all other causes combined. According to statics more than 80,000 people with cardiovascular disease died in 2005, making it the No.1 killer in America. Not only that, but each year in England and Wales, an estimated 124,000 deaths are caused by CVD, where about 39,000 of them occur in people under the age of 75. Due to the continuing obesity prevalent, it is predicted that atherosclerosis will continue to be a major health problem in this country.

Worldwide, coronary artery disease (CAD) is the most common cause of death, with over seven million people every year dying from it, accounting for 12.8% of all deaths(1).

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death in the United States with more than 610,00 people who die every year because of the complications attached to these diseases. Not only that, more than 735,000 people have heart attacks of different intensities ranging from slight to dangerous and life-threatening. The main heart disease that is diagnosed among patients is known as atherosclerosis.

A. List five factors that influence health? Explain how each factor influences health and identify

Income, wealth, and education are three social economic factors that play a vital role in healthy lifestyle. In his article “Can Health Promotion Programs Save Medicare Money,” Goetzel Rz., states that “Income and wealth are the most important social determinant of health,” and that, “levels of income shape the overall living conditions, psychological functioning, health related choices related to quality of diet, physical activity, tobacco use, and alcohol

The heart disease is not noted as a major cause of death among the children as well as teenagers, but it has become the largest cause of death among adults in the world. In fact, someone in the world dies every 37 seconds from some form of cardiovascular disease.

Cardiovascular diseases include atherosclerosis, ischemic stroke, hemorrhagic stroke, heart failure, arrhythmia and heart valve issues (AHA, 2014). Risk factors for heart disease are divided into three categories: major risk factors, modifiable risk factors and contributing risk factors. Major risk factors including increasing age, a majority of heart disease related deaths are those 65 or older. Males have a higher risk of developing heart disease, this is a pattern I was able to track in my own family. Heart disease is also found to be hereditary, those with parents or other blood related family members with heart disease have a higher chance of having the disease themselves. Ethnicity can play a role too, as heart disease is more common in Mexicans and African Americans than it is in caucasians.

The WHO's World Health Report 2002 identified five important risk factors for non-communicable disease in the top ten leading risks to health. These are raised blood pressure, raised cholesterol, tobacco use, alcohol consumption, and overweight.[5] Other factors associated with higher risk of NCDs include a person's economic and social conditions, also known as the "social determinants of health."

According to WHO (2016), globally CVDs are the number one cause of death and it usually takes place in low and middle-income countries. According to the Heart Foundation New Zealand (2015), CVD is still the leading cause of the mortality in this country, for a total of 30% deaths annually. Every hour and a half 90 people in New Zealand dies from heart disease. And every one of twenty New Zealanders are diagnosed with a heart disease. Reasons that there