Health Care Assignment: Approaches to Public Health Problems

Question

Task: Describe the public health issue you identified in your home country or the

local area where you live now including the:
• Extent of the public health issue
• Determinants of health for the publichealth issue identified
• Population groups most at risk
• Health disparity, inequity and inequality

You must use appropriate evidence and references to support your statements.

Answer

Introduction
Increasing complex challenges in health issues requires more integration of public health approaches in aspects to illness management, changes in the healthcare system, economic forces and disease prevention. It is necessary to explain the impacts and issues associated with the healthcare system, due to an increase in heart disease in Australia (Haniganet al., 2019).

The extent of public health (heart disease) issue
Cardiovascular Disease (CVD), heart disease, is identified as a leading cause of death across every region and the incidences are increasing rapidly. As per the report of American Heart Associates (AHA), 50% of the adult population in the United State encountered cardiovascular disease. The morality of death rates in the United States is identified as the leading causes of death. Almost 1 in every 4 heart disease patients are recorded to be dead. Many of Australian healthcare professionals warn that sleep deprivation and obesity renders significant risk factors for chronic conditions like cardiovascular and other heart diseases (Barr et al., 2018). The rate of obesity is detected eventually high in the United States. As per the report of healthcare institutes, the rate of adult smokers between 12-19 years has increased from 76% to 94%. Besides, meeting the ideal levels for body mass index (BMI), blood glucose and physical activity is not improved. For instance, the rate of body mass index in the United States was reduced from 70% to 60%. Besides, the consumption of tobacco is identified as another cause, leading to death from stroke in the United State. Physical inactiveness is discouraged between most of the adults in the US population as they are actively participating in yoga, aerobics and other muscles-strengthening activities to avoid the risk associated with heart and respiratory organs (Campbell et al., 2018).

Determinants of health for the heart disease issue identified
Excessive consumption of alcohol, smoking and tobacco are determinant as primary issues causing factors in adult populations. Hypertension, unhealthy diet, obesity and diabetes are identified as a determinant risk associated with heart disease. In the case of old age, the risk of heart disease is eventually high as their immune system is not that strong to fight back diseases causing public health issues. In Australia, people who are identified as Torres Strait Islander are recorded to encounter three times more the risk of heart diseases as compared to non-indigenous Australians (Welsh, Korda, Joshy, & Banks, 2019).

Diabetic patients render other determinants that encounter serious complications in heart disease from those who are not diabetic. Diabetic person renders five times more risk of stroke and ten times more risk to suffer from a heart attack. Based on the report of WHO, the risk of heart disease is double times common within the female. Besides, serious risk triggers when any person is aged and suffering from diabetes (O'Neil et al., 2016).

Population groups most at risk
Analyzing the records of the health ministry of the year 2016, 840,678 cardiovascular deaths have been registered in the US, which was 836,546 deaths in the year 2015. It has been currently reported that the high prevalence of such heart disease is rising due to the increasing incidences of high blood pressure. Increasing smoking habits within adults between the ages of 12-19 years is identified as a major reason for individuals encountering heart diseases. However, due to the fear of rising death rates due to heart diseases, United State populations are encouraged more towards muscle strengthening, which has reduced the rate of physically inactive adults in the US (Bonner, Fajardo, Hui, Stubbs &Trevena, 2018).

Health disparity, inequality and inequity
Cardiovascular disease is identified as a major reason behind deaths occurring in Australia, which depicts a disproportionate toll on many ethnic groups, and racial that encountered high rates of CVD risk factors. For instance, the rate of CVD has accounted one-third of health disparity in the potential life-years that were lost between white and black. Besides, ethnic and racial minority populations are confronting more hurdles to CVD care and diagnosis, experiencing the worst healthcare outcomes and lower quality of treatments (Hoare, Stavreski, Kingwell& Jennings, 2017).

It can be evaluated that in America the healthcare professionals encompass inequality and inequity approaches rather than ethnicity in their professionalism. Healthcare disparity arises due to a number of complex factors like genetic, physiological factors accessing to communication and care barriers, income as well as education. The greater implication of such health disparity by the caregivers greater would be the death rate (Alexander et al., 2018).

Conclusion
Public health issues render disruptive impacts, which include increasing cardiovascular and respiratory disease, premature deaths, infectious diseases, borne illnesses and other injuries. In case of chronic diseases like coronary diseases, awareness among the public also plays a major role in the mitigation of the risks of occurrence. Integrating accurate public health measures would help Australian populations to reduce their increasing death rate due to heart diseases or other chronic diseases.

References
Alexander, D. D., Miller, P. E., Van Elswyk, M. E., Kuratko, C. N., &Bylsma, L. C. (2017, January). A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials and prospective cohort studies of eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic long-chain omega-3 fatty acids and coronary heart disease risk.In Mayo Clinic Proceedings (Vol. 92, No. 1, pp. 15-29).Elsevier.

Barr, E. L., Barzi, F., Rohit, A., Cunningham, J., Tatipata, S., McDermott, R., ...& Thompson, P. (2018). Performance of ACC/AHA Cardiovascular Disease Risk Equations in Indigenous Australians With and Without Diabetes: The CRISP Study Collaboration. Circulation, 138(Suppl_1), A14374-A14374.

Bonner, C., Fajardo, M. A., Hui, S., Stubbs, R., &Trevena, L. (2018). Clinical validity, understandability, and actionability of online cardiovascular disease risk calculators: systematic review. Journal of medical Internet research, 20(2), e29.

Campbell, D. J., Coller, J. M., Gong, F. F., McGrady, M., Prior, D. L., Boffa, U., ...& Krum, H. (2018). Risk factor management in a contemporary Australian population at increased cardiovascular disease risk. Internal medicine journal, 48(6), 688-698.
Hanigan, I., Chaston, T., Hinze, B., Dennekamp, M., Jalaludin, B., Kinfu, Y., & Morgan, G. (2019).High spatial resolution health risk assessment of road traffic noise on ischemic heart disease deaths for Melbourne, Australia in 2011. Environmental Epidemiology, 3, 151-152.
Hoare, E., Stavreski, B., Kingwell, B. A., & Jennings, G. L. (2017). Australian adults' behaviours, knowledge and perceptions of risk factors for heart disease: A cross-sectional study. Preventive medicine reports, 8, 204-209.
O'Neil, A., Fisher, A. J., Kibbey, K. J., Jacka, F. N., Kotowicz, M. A., Williams, L. J., ... & Taylor, C. B. (2016). The addition of depression to the Framingham Risk Equation model for predicting coronary heart disease risk in women. Preventive medicine, 87, 115-120.
Welsh, J., Korda, R. J., Joshy, G., & Banks, E. (2019). Primary absolute cardiovascular disease risk and prevention in relation to psychological distress in the Australian population: a nationally representative cross-sectional study. Frontiers in Public Health, 7, 126.