The Causes and Effects of Global Health Issues.

This paper will step out of the comfort of the first world American lifestyle and look beyond to the health and social issues around the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) is the leading stakeholder in advancing the awareness and support on global health issues along with the United Nations (UN) and other governmental and nongovernmental agencies. Only once the issues of these vulnerable people are identified can these organizations move forward in addressing and prioritizing the rapidly evolving global health agenda. The Millennium Development Goals will be defined briefly, however, since their goal completion date has ended, a future look at follow on program, Sustainable Development Goals seems the best place

Did you know “AIDS is the leading cause of death in Africa” (Quinn, online). Twenty percent of Africa’s population has died from AIDS. Poverty is a big problem in Africa. Men have been forced to become migrant workers in urban areas. And antiretroviral treatment at this time is not available to African people. AIDS is a big problem in Africa today that is now requiring help from the world.

Of the 35 million people living with HIV in the world, 19 million do not know their HIV-positive status. Adolescent girls and young women account for one in four new HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa. Women are much more vulnerable to HIV, tuberculosis and hepatitis B and C than the general public. Which is supported by this excerpt from a recent AIDSTAR-One regional report “Women and girls often face discrimination in terms of access to education, employment and healthcare. In this region, men often dominate sexual relationships. As a result, women cannot always practice safer sex even when they know the risks involved. Gender-based violence has been identified as a key driver of HIV transmission in the region.” (Ellsberg, Betron 2010) Many children are affected by the disease in a number of ways: they live with sick parents and relatives in households drained of resources due to the epidemic, and those who have lost parents are less likely to go to school or continue their education. Studies in the regions of Southern Africa and South-East Asia have found HIV/AIDS to negatively impact both the demand for and supply of education. Orphaned children are either pulled out of school or not enrolled at all due to the financial constraints of

The low income due to HIV/AIDS leads to low consumption of goods and little savings, which results in malnutrition, inability to combat illness and a lack of education and skills. The low capital worth, low

without the funds necessary to supply medical help, disease in Africa is exponential , much

HIV disproportionately effects those living at or below poverty level. For many, lack of employment or underemployment can also mean a lack of insurance and access to consistent medical

The residents of Africa are suffering from preventable, treatable, and fatal diseases everyday at a higher rate compared to developed countries. The healthcare crisis in Africa is the primary cause of all these deaths, and includes inefficient healthcare systems. Consequently, African's inefficient healthcare systems results in poor delivery of care and a shortage of health professionals. The healthcare crisis in Africa is a current issue impacting the lives of many African's who don't have the same access to resources as developed countries such as the United States. These resources can save the lives of many African's dying of preventable and curable disease, and understanding why the African continent has little access to them

There is a troubling surge in malaria and diphtheria, two diseases eradicated in the 1970s and 1990s respectively. Furthermore, the country has short supplies of antiretrovirals medicine to treat the infected population with HIV/AIDS, exposing others of infection.

HIV/AIDS is capable of destroying a country, killing millions of people, promoting gender barriers, discrimination, debt, abuse, and increasing poverty. In addition, “HIV/AIDS results in gossip and rejection by family, friends, and neighbors and physical, verbal, and sexual abuse by intimate partners, ultimately distancing women from sources of economic and food support, causing infected people to be fearful and hesitant to disclose their HIV status. With people hiding HIV/AIDS, it will be impossible to tell whether or not that person has it, causing it to spread rapidly, without people even knowing it. People could share needles with others and engage in sexual intercourse to spread HIV without even knowing if they or the other person has

On the flip side, this public fixation has led to a situation whereby AIDS and TB monopolise the funding pool at the expense of addressing other health areas. A look into the distribution of aid allocation within Botswana proves the case in point. In 2010, Botswana received more than 5 times the total amount of funding required for HIV/AIDS prevention. Its other health focus areas, by comparison, received little funding despite issues such as chronic and mental illnesses, as well as maternal healthcare, being the larger contributors to the overall disease burden within the

Health is a complex concept, and global health adds to this complexity. When I think of health as a concept, I view it as being absent of disease. This understanding is a very biomedical approach to health and is a very narrow viewpoint of health. According to the World Health Organization (1948), health is defined as a “state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (a cited by Jacobsen p. 2). This definition does give a better understanding of what health is from a broader perspective. At the University of Victoria’s Global Health class, I have become to understand better the WHO’s definition and that it is linked to the social determinants of health. In this paper, I will reflect and analyze the learning that occurred for myself while taking the Global Health class, and how this knowledge has helped my nursing practice evolve at the local and international level.

Thus, finding methods of educating people, and providing medical aid for these preventable diseases can avoid many deaths. Second reason for attending global health issue is for balancing resources. According to The Lancet Journal, ninety percent of the world’s health care resources are spent on diseases that affect only ten percent of the world’s population. (Norris, 2009) Therefore, ensuring that resources are evenly distributed throughout the world would assist to limit the diseases from spreading from country to country. Third, global health can influence Canadians indirectly such as, the increase of diseases. Some of these diseases becoming more prevalent is HIV/AIDS, malaria, and TB and are increasing poverty and political instability within countries. (Worldwide HIV & AIDS Statistics, 2009) Thus, global health should be a concern because it can help prevent civil conflict in other countries. (Worldwide HIV & AIDS Statistics, 2009) Fourth, global health should be a concern across all nations as there is more contact amongst people because of globalization diseases occurs at a faster rate. Globalization is defined as a modern phenomenon process by which countries and peoples are increasingly interconnected, integrated, and interdependent that occurred over centuries. (Andrews, 2010) Since the world is increasingly becoming interconnected, diseases can travel from nation to nation and it can cause

The impact of AIDS may be felt as an immediate shock, as when a family loses a breadwinner, or in the case of a firm, an important employer leaves. However, at the national level the impact is felt as the gradual accrual of losses. The toll of HIV/AIDS on households can be very severe. Many families lose their bread winners. Many of those dying have surviving partners who are themselves infected and are in need of care. They leave behind children grieving and struggling to survive without the care of the parents. The disease strips the family assets further impoverishing the poor. In many cases, the presence of AIDS means that the household eventually dissolves, as the parents die and children are sent to relatives for care and upbringing. The gravity of the impact depends not only on the numbers infected and directly affected by the pandemic, but also on the resources available to manage the situation. This may be resources accessible at family, community or national level.

South Africa has the largest population of people living with HIV/ AIDS. In 2016, South Africa had an estimated 7.1 million people living with HIV/ AIDS [1]. This epidemic has ripple effects across micro & macro–levels of the economy. HIV/AIDS negatively impacts labor supply, total labor productivity & exports among other economic channels. Given the significant impact this disease has on the economy, this is a top priority for the business community and the government.

This disease has made people outcasts in our society because they have this disease that can kill or make someone ill for a long period of time which will adventually lead to death. Widdison and Delaney (1996) write, "It is convenient to characterize a social problem as a conflict of values and duties, a conflict of rights or social condition that leads to or is thought to lead to harmful consequences". (Page 10) Staying with the topic that over population and poverty combined causes social problems such as scarce jobs and resources for people but only that overpopulation is responsible for the conditions, which contribute to the overall lowering of the quality of life of human beings in society. Another problem is AIDS, which is both a population and social problem. People are sometimes not accepted because they have the AIDS virus. This also affects the poor people more than the wealthy because AIDS is more common among poor neighborhoods because they have less money to buy things such as condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS and other diseases. According to the Global AIDS Policy Commission "about 95 percent were spent in industrialized countries that have less than 25 percent of the world's population", 18 percent of the people with AIDS and 15 percent of HIV infections worldwide." (Tarantola and Mann, 1995 pages 123-124) According these numbers, a very large