Ill health affects every aspect of your life and our health can be affected by certain decisions about our health which we don’t necessarily note as important. A few examples of factors that can affect our health are:
Government Initiatives
To help improve the health of members of the society, the government has introduced some health promotion campaigns that involve working closely with the communities. The most recent government initiative which was introduced in November 2004 is Choosing Health: making healthy choices easier. This programme was introduced because the government recognised in increased interest in health and acknowledged that a new approach needs to be introduced so as to help tackle the obstacles people face when trying to make healthier choices. They therefore came up with 3 main principles which were:
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The main purpose of this initiative was to reduce the percentage of smokers, reduce obesity, improve diet, sexual health, and mental health, and encourage sensible drinking and exercise.
The areas for action set out in the Choosing Health (2004) are:
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JOB ROLES AND PREVENTATIVE MEASURES
There are a lot of health professionals that are involved in promoting good health. However, the two health care professionals I am going to discuss are General Practitioners and Environmental health personnel’s.
General Practitioners
General practitioners otherwise know as GPs are part of the local primary care trust that provide communities with a range of services. They are the first point of contact a patient has with the NHS. They can also be described as personal doctors as they keep in mind the physical, psychological, and social factors that can affect their patient health while also building a unique doctor-patient relationship. Being a part of the primary health care team, they therefore act as a link to more specialised services in hospital settings. Their operations are governed by the new General Medical Services contract which aims to give them more flexibility hence helping them get to patients that can’t go to them. They provide their patients with essential services (e.g. chronic disease management), additional services (minor surgery, cervical screening, or contraceptive services), enhanced services (more specialised interventions not provided by most GPs).
Preventative measure
Cervical screening: this is one of the additional services some GPs offer. This is a way to prevent cervical cancer because when an abnormality that can develop into cervical cancer is noted, it can be treated. A sample of cell from the woman’s cervix is smeared on a slide which is then taken to be examined in the laboratory. Cervical screening is more important for women aged between 25 and 64 and has to be carried out every 3 to 5 years.
Contraceptive services: this is also one of the additional services most GPs offer their patients. This is done to help prevent unwanted pregnancies or protect the individual from sexual transmitted diseases (STDs) or Sexual Transmitted Infections (STIs).
Environmental health personnel
They play an important role in our communities as they deal with our water supply, food safety, refuse disposal, pollution control, and housing. Their services are:
- Ensuring that the food produced or sold locally is safe by examining the food and carrying out an investigation into the presence of any food or water borne disease and complaints
- Enforcing health and safety rule in consumer and leisure services, work places, shops, or offices. Ensure that any accident that occurs in the work place is reported. Regular inspections of site that need special licence.
- The environmental department investigate public complaints about issues such as noise pollution, smoke, fumes, odour which can affect people’s health so that they can be reduced.
- The pest control team treat infestation of pest such as rodents, fleas, cockroaches, and wasps in various sites throughout the borough. They also remove stray dogs from the streets.
FACTORS THAT AFFECT HEALTH AND WELL BEING
Our health can be affected by the ay we live our lives. In other words, our lifestyle. Therefore it is absolutely essential that we make wise decisions concerning our health as the aftermath of a bad decision can out weight the immediate ‘benefit’. In this section, I am going to discuss the effect of smoking and malnutrition /a bad diet has on your health.
Smoking
Cigarettes contain over 4,000 harmful chemicals and every year hundreds of people around the globe die from a disease caused by smoking. They are very addictive and therefore it is extremely hard to quit smoking. Research has shown that 1 in 2 lifetime smokers die from the habit and half of these deaths occur in their middle age. However, because the effect of smoking does not occur immediately, in-fact you are more likely to feel the ‘benefits’ immediately (e.g. feeling less stressed out which is actually due to you satisfying your nicotine craving), most smokers refuse to acknowledge the effects of smoking some of which are:-
- Bad breath
- Weight gain
- Bad skin
- Costs a lot
- Heart attacks and strokes
- Cancers (lung, throat, breast etc)
- Slowing down the blood flow which could eventually lead to you having you limbs amputated
- Emphysema
As well as these effects I have listed above, there are also some day to day effects such as shortness of breath which could mean that you can’t run fast as fast as a non-smoker. This is due to the fact that the carbon monoxide from the smoke robs your organs (e.g. your brain, muscles, body tissue) of oxygen which causes your body to work harder. This therefore leads to your airway swelling up and letting in less air into your lungs. Smoking also makes sperm unhealthy therefore reducing the chances of them being able to fertiliser an egg.
More facts about smoking
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MALNUTRITION
Malnutrition or a bad diet has become a major concern in today’s society especially with the 60% increase in overweight children and 70% increase in obesity. 30,000 deaths a year can be linked to obesity. It can be argued that the main reason obesity levels have increased so much is because we’ve got a very bad diet. Research has proven that up to 80% of bowel and breast cancer may be preventable by a change to our diets.
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