Archive for category: Health

Information and stories on health topics.

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Cancer Cases at All Time High

Cancer cases
According to the World Health Organization, Cancer cases are soaring each year. Data indicates an upward trend from 12.7 million cases in 2008 to 14 million in 2012. Cancer related deaths have also increased from 7.6 million to 8.3 million since 2008. With these growing rates, there is a desperate need for advances in diagnosis and detection of cancer.

An IARC report has shown a connection between increased smoking, obesity and cancer rates. This report also predicts a rise in cancer cases to 19.3 million by 2025. Several types of cancer kill every year but the most common cancer affecting thousands of women worldwide and is a leading cause of deaths in developing countries is attributed to breast cancer.

Developed countries do not have the clinical advances required to stop the disease at an early stage. Several people living below the poverty level don’t even know they have breast cancer since clinics are scarce. The Word Health Organization has also claimed this urgency for treatment of breast cancer in developing countries as thousands die from late detection. In 2012, around 522,000 women from around the globe died of this disease. Lung cancer is also among the top most common cancers worldwide, about 13% of total cancer cases. The large amount of lung cancer rates has been linked to both increased smoking from adults and young adults alike. Longer lifespans also contributes to these spiking rates according to the BBC.

Several health leaders from IARC believe that these growing cancer rates can be changed through preemptive action seen before with cervical cancer and access to the HPV vaccination. They hope that national programs for screening can produce similar excellent results and by giving easy access to treatment or detection centers, several will be able to beat other forms of cancer.

– Maybelline Martez

Sources: BBC, NY Daily News, Global Post
Photo: Giphy.com

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Overpopulation and Public Health

overpopulation public health
There is much debate whether overpopulation poses public health risks. Some believe it is the cause of hunger and poverty throughout the world while others feel that it has never been a problem.  It is important to shed light on this fear of overpopulation as its consequences are said to be evident in all developing countries.

Several reports about Africa’s growing population has been connected to the starvation of millions of people. Every year 32.5 percent of children in developing countries suffer from malnutrition. Sustainable population advocates have pointed to the approximate 200 million hunger-related deaths in the past twenty years. Deterioration in global biodiversity has also been linked to overpopulation. Substantial data of species loss has been presented by countries such as China, Brazil and Mexico. Human settlements that are gradually increasing according to the rate of population is said to ruin the benefits of nature and destroy habitats. The consequences of overpopulation is also suggested in access to education, primarily in Africa. In African classrooms, children are unable to learn due to overcrowding.  Access to water, medical care and housing are all diminished when there are more people that require aid. Data from the United Nations further suggests that by 2050, 10 percent to 15 percent of land that is farmed today will not be available. This could potentially lead to a food crisis as the current population increases at a faster rate.

Those supporting a sustainable population see hope in public policies being employed in countries such as Bangladesh, Iran and Thailand. Results from securing social services to women and families indicate a large decrease in undernourished people in Asia, from 23.7 percent to 13.9 percent. This downward trend from simply giving access to birth control and adopting policies that give aid to small families suggests that overpopulation is an issue that can be solved.  Policies that provide family planning to those in remote, rural areas in Asia has led to stability in undernourishment over time. By merely shifting the focus on public policy these countries quickly witnessed better health standards, quality of education and housing availability, all of which offer hope to the remaining developing nations.

– Maybelline Martez

Sources: Scientific American, Huffington Post, World Hunger

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Ethnic Tension Within Inner Mongolia

mongolia
It is no secret that the concerns and rights of ethnic minorities in China fall to the wayside in favor of the Han, the ethnicity with the majority in the country. Inner Mongolia serves as an example of the cultural and economic strife caused by marginalizing one group over another. The result is what the Mongol minority believes is outright economic exclusion and the watering down of their culture.

One of the key issues within the region is the migration of the indigenous nomads from their native grasslands to the cities. The Chinese government waves off the migration as a move into modernity for the nomads. A removal from what Chinese authorities refer to as a “backward” culture, but as Nick Holdstock of the U.K. Independent points out, the natives have no say whatsoever when it comes to moving to the cities. This outflow of ethnic Mongolians to urban centers has raised fears among Mongolians that their culture, language and lifestyle are being threatened.

Another point of tension lies in the regional mining of rare-earth metals. Various mining companies have entered the region to take advantage of the lucrative prospects, especially since the value of these metals is demonstrated in their ubiquity among high-tech electronics. However, the mining has been accompanied by a degradation of the surrounding environment as well as the health of the nomads.

For example, the town of Baotou, a major mining hub, has seen its groundwater polluted to toxic levels, their crops ruined and much of their livestock destroyed. Moreover, the use of underground water sources, essential to the removal of impurities from the coal, has lessened the water available to crops and livestock. Many farmers, unable to deal with destruction of their livelihood, have moved away. The Guardian points out that the population within the surrounding villages of the Baotou plants has decreased dramatically. Those that have remained in the area are plagued by severe illness.

All of these factors have coalesced, creating serious economic problems for the ethnic minority. Environmental devastation of their grasslands has degraded some of the main forms of their economic livelihood; the mining industry in the region tends to hire workers from other provinces, excluding the nomads from many of the economic benefits the industry might bring.  Furthermore, those who have migrated to urban areas have discovered cultural barriers to finding gainful employment, namely an inability to speak passable Mandarin.

Tensions have, moreover, reached the point of violence in some instances. In 2011, a herder was killed by a passing coal truck when he attempted to prevent coal trucks from crossing into his land during his protest against the mining industry. Several days later another protester was killed by a forklift driver. Tensions finally boiled over and several thousand Mongolians went out to voice their opposition toward the mining activities.

Unfortunately, the case of Inner Mongolia is a harsh reminder among ethnic minorities in China of their second-class citizen status. Perhaps in time, the Chinese government will listen to the voices of protest among the disenfranchised minority groups that populate many rural areas throughout China. Until then, Mongolians and other ethnicities face major economic and cultural challenges.

– Zack Lindberg

Sources: The Independent, The Guardian
Fabio Ghioni

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Food Aid in Puntland, Somalia

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On November 10, a deadly cyclone raged through the region of Puntland, located in Somalia’s northeastern coast. Though the cyclone has reportedly killed up to 300 people, the death toll has not yet been verified. Many of these victims were children and elderly, both of which are more vulnerable to hypothermia and exposure. Moreover, the United Nations says as many as 30,000 people are in need of food aid.

Whole villages have been washed away by the storm, thus forcing local aid workers to struggle to reach the stranded victims due to the damaged infrastructure. Furthermore, large portions of roads have been damaged, driving aid workers to deliver food aid on foot. Many people are also missing, especially in coastal towns where fisherman and their boats have been lost at sea.

Pastoralists have been hit the hardest since their livestock and poorly built homes and barns have been washed away. The region does not normally experience rain so the area’s infrastructure has not been built to withstand this sort of storm. In fact, some of the worst hit villages have lost 90 percent of their livestock to icy rain and flooding.

Moreover, areas infamous for pirates such as the port of Ely are some of the worst affected. This is worrisome as the 2004 Tsunami was considered one of the major triggers of the pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia where 736 people and 32 ships were held hostage.

The World Food Programme (WFP) recently arrived in Puntland and transported 340 metric tons of food including cereal and vegetable seeds to the worst affected areas of Bossaso, Banderbayla, Dongoroyo and Eyl. In total 27, 000 people have been given a month’s worth of food rations. In addition Puntland’s government sent 32 trucks of emergency supplies throughout the needed areas.

Once emergency aid has been distributed and the region is no longer in a state of disaster the WFP will begin recovery work to rebuild the infrastructure of the area. The Food-for-Assets initiative is a recovery program run by the WFP that assists communities in rebuilding their infrastructure in a way that would better withstand a future natural disaster. Moreover, community workers are paid in food rations for assisting with the development.

Further south in Middle Shabelle, flooding has devastated the town of Jowhar and surrounding areas, pushing over 10,000 people to flee their homes. Their water supplies have, furthermore, been contaminated increasing the risk of waterborne diseases, while all standing crops and livestock in the area have been destroyed or lost. The International Committee of the Red Cross has provided 25,800 people with emergency essentials such as kitchen sets, clothes and sleeping mats.  They have also been able to stop flooding and repair riverbanks in five locations and distributed emergency food aid and water.

– Lisa Toole

Sources: AllAfrica: Food Aid, AllAfrica: Twin Natural Disasters, Yahoo, World Food Programme, Aljazeera

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Social Determinants of Health

Medical Tourism
When most people think about the health of individuals, communities, and populations they think of access to healthcare. People in developing countries have a definite lack of access to doctors, nurses, drugs, and the latest medical technologies.  It is important to remember that the conditions people are born into also have a significant and lasting affect on their health. These circumstances are shaped by the distribution of power and resources both globally and locally. These factors are known as the “Social Determinants of Health”

The social determinants of health are the social, economic, and political factors that shape the health of individuals, communities, and nations. Social determinants of health include both environmental resources such as housing, income and income distribution, unemployment, early life, education, and food insecurity.  They also include gender, ethnicity, class, and race.

The social determinants of health are responsible for health inequities. Health inequities are the large discrepancies in health status seen between countries and within countries. Wealthier countries in the developed world have much lower rates of infant mortality. The infant mortality rate is the number of infants who die before they reach age one, per 1000 births in any year.

The World Bank reports that Sweden, Norway, and Japan have an infant mortality rate of only two in 2012. The US is three times higher at six deaths per 1000 live births. Unfortunately, in many countries in sub Saharan Africa approximately 10% of children die before their first birthday. The infant mortality rate in Sierra Leone was 117 in 2012.

Another factor used to measure the health of nations that is largely impacted by the social determinants of health is life expectancy at birth. Countries in sub Saharan Africa fare the worst; Sierra Leone has a life expectancy of 45 years and Mozambique has a life expectancy of 49 years. High-income countries fare much better; Japan and Switzerland have average life expectancies of 83. The United States has an average life expectancy of 79 years.  Inequality within a country also has a large impact on the overall health of a nation. The U.S. has one of the highest rates of inequality in the world. This is why the US does not fare as well as other developed countries in infant mortality rates and life expectancy.

Health inequities are considered to be unfair and avoidable. It is widely considered that health inequities could be abolished with improved social policies and programs and great income iquality. At the World Conference on the Social Determinants of Health in 2011 the WHO developed five action areas for improving health equity:

1.    Adopt improved governance for health and development

2.    Promote participation in policy making and implantation

3.   Further reorient the health sector towards promoting health and reducing health inequities

4.   Strengthen global governance and collaboration

5.   Monitor progress and increase accountability

– Lisa Toole 

Sources: The World Bank, WHO, CDC, NCBI

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Drones Impact on Mental Health in Pakistan

The United States has waged a drone campaign in Pakistan since the early 2000’s. The Waziristan region in northern Pakistan has been a specific target due to the major presence of the Taliban in the area. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London released a report indicating that drone strikes carried out by the U.S. have killed 3,581 people since 2004. That number includes 884 civilians and 197 children. Unsurprisingly, this has led to a rise in mental health issues.

The Huffington Post reported a story of a man who lost nine friends and relatives in one attack in 2009. While Mohammed Fahim was in another room, a drone hit his house, killing everyone else instantly. Fahim insists that his family had no ties to Islamist militancy, but instead that this was an attack that went astray.

Residents in Waziristan complain of living in a constant fear of drones, specifically citing the buzzing sound they emit when they fly overhead. This fear is leading to a rise in depression, anxiety, and in some cases psychotic episodes. Doctor Muktar ul-Haq is the head of psychiatry at a government hospital in the city of Peshawar. He told a story of a man who had a full blown psychotic episode after he found a SIM card outside of his house. A common rumor in Pakistan is that SIM cards emit signals to drones, guiding their attack. Haq said when the man was admitted he was “aggressive and paranoid.”

The social problems that plague Pakistan, such as poverty, Taliban violence, and unemployment, contribute to the rise in depression and anxiety. With all of these other problems, mental health falls to the bottom of the list. There are no official statistics about the rise in mental health issues, but some psychiatrists treating people in the region estimate that rates psychological illnesses have risen three fold.

– Colleen Eckvahl

Sources: Huffington Post, The Atlantic
Photo: CS Monitor

HIV Infection Rises in China’s Youth Population

China HIV AIDS
The HIV rate appears to be rising among Chinese people aged 15-24, according to HIV/AIDS specialists at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Between 2011 and 2012 the rate of new infection in youths increased 29% from 1,074 to 1,387. The overall new infection rate has quadrupled since 2007.

Another change in the demographics of China’s HIV infections is that transmission through sex, as opposed to intravenous drugs or infections in medical settings, accounts for 87.1% of new cases.

Between 2008 and 2012, the proportion of youth infected with HIV/AIDS almost doubled, and inconsistent use of condoms among men who have sex with men (MSM) in urban areas is considered to be a major factor, according to UNAIDS.

Of newly infected youth, 95% are men.

“The kinds of people suffering from AIDS have grown more varied and complex,” states Dr. Wang Ning, AIDS specialist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. “The direction of the development of the disease is from high-risk groups to groups that have traditionally been understood as low-risk groups,” including university students.

Homosexuality remains taboo in China, as well as frank conversations concerning sex, especially in rural areas.

China Radio International reports that there is a lack of sex education in Chinese schools and where sex education is taught, it is generally sex-segregated, with boys and girls only learning about their own gender.

During the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of people reportedly were infected with HIV from receiving contaminated blood and plasma. In what is widely considered a cover-up by officials in the Henan province, “blood-dealers” purchased poor farmers’ untested blood, pooled it, and returned the plasma to the farmers, causing a quick spread of HIV. The blood then entered hospitals and continued to infect people.

The black market economy was reportedly encouraged by local officials, including current Chinese Premier Li Keqiang who was a senior Communist Party official in the province at the time.

Li forbid NGOs and medical professionals from reaching those infected with HIV in Henan.

“It was because of Li’s cover-up of the AIDS epidemic that a large number of patients did not receive attention and died,” states HIV/AIDS advocate Hu Jia.

Contrary to China’s recent trends, HIV infections in the developing world have decreased over 50% since 2001, according to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS.

The majority of this improvement has occurred in Sub-Saharan Africa, with Malawi, Namibia and Botswana seeing a roughly 70% decrease in new infections in the last 10 years.

However, infections in the Middle East and North Africa have increased 35% in the same timeframe, and rates in Eastern Europe and Central Asia appear to be rising as well.

Though there are serious concerns about rising rates among young people in China, rates of HIV remain relatively low. As a point of comparison, in 2010 there were 12,200 new cases of HIV for youths age 13-24 in the United States, a rate 12 times higher than that of China in a country with a quarter of China’s population.

Dr. Bernard Schwartlander, director at UNAIDS, reports that China is focused on getting HIV-positive people on antiretroviral drugs, which treat those infected as well as reduce the risks of infecting others. He also says that China’s HIV response has improved dramatically, with the country having one of the biggest harm-reduction initiatives, including needle exchanges and methadone clinics.

Such programs do not, however, directly address the spread of the infection through sex, and many in the country still believe that the government does not care about people with HIV/AIDS.

Hu Jia claims that the government merely pays lip-service to HIV/AIDS issues. She asserts, “Every year around December 1, the Communist Party[-led] administration appears very concerned [with HIV/AIDS issues]. But the media has never reported all the demonstrations and petitions or the suffering of the people with AIDS.”

– Kaylie Cordingley

Sources: New York Times, Al Jazeera, NPR, China Daily, CDC

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Bubonic Plague Hits Madagascar

It is amazing that in the year 2013, the Bubonic Plague still exists on this planet. The disease that is known as the Black Death that caused at least 25 million deaths in the 14th century has this week been linked the death of at least 20 people in Madagascar, and may still infect more in the weeks to come.

This announcement is one of the worst outbreaks of the disease in years, and there is concern that it could spread to more towns and cities in the region. The Bubonic Plague is a disease that is transmitted through animals, usually through rats that hold infected flees which then infect humans, which has a high mortality rate if not immediately treated. This disease has mainly been eradicated from most areas of the world, but has been known to appear in developing nations such as Madagascar, where there are low hygiene levels, high levels of population and low resources to prevent the disease.

There was warning from the International Committee of the Red Cross in October that the nation of the East Coast of Mainland Africa was at high risk of an epidemic, but the warnings went mostly unheeded by the locals in the region. It is not that the locals were negligent in preventing the spread of this disease, but there are higher systemic problems that are harder to overcome for the locals.

Madagascar harbored this plague for many reasons. Locals in the region have low literacy rates, which makes it hard to share live saving information that prevents exposure to diseases. The country of Madagascar does not support a strong democratic government with a low corruption rate. When corruption is prevalent through all levels of government, funds that can be applied towards improving the nation often end up in the pockets of the few that are in power, adding to the national poverty.

The nation is one that is often prone to civil unrest, which many violent outbreaks has increase the use of military force on the people. The frequency of civil unrest has suppressed desire for foreign tourism which has decreased revenue for the national economy.

Madagascar is just an example of how poverty in a region can encourage the spread of life threatening diseases. Nations that have low standards of living, high levels of populations, weak central governments and low levels of hygiene are danger zones for disease. It is discouraging for a disease that has largely been eradicated from the face of the world to still exist in this poor region of the world.

– Travis Whinery

Sources: Time, Daily Mail, BBC, Reuters UK
Photo: Wikimedia

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Child Labor: An Overview

Child_Labor_an_Overview
“Millions of children are victims of violence and exploitation. They are physically and emotionally vulnerable and they can be scarred for life by mental or emotional abuse. That is why children should always have the first claim on our attention and resources. They must be at the heart of our thinking on challenges we are addressing on a daily basis. We know what to do, and we know how to do it. The means are at hand, it is up to us to seize the opportunity and build a world that is fit for children,” remarked Ban Ki-moon, Secretarty-General of the United Nations on November 20, 2009, on the Twentieth Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Just as Ban Ki-moon mentioned, children are not physically or mentally ready to enter the labor force. With the lack of physical abilities, the safety of the workplace cannot be ensured, for both the children and other employees. In fact, children are more likely to be abused and mistreated in an environment centering around child labor.

“Few human rights abuses are so widely condemned, yet so widely practiced. Let us make (child labor) a priority. Because a child in danger is a child that cannot wait,” stated Kofi Annan, Former UN Secretary-General. Around the world, more than 211 million children between the age of 5 and 14 are being forced to work. Among these children, 120 million children are working full time.

To eradicate child labor, people should first understand what leads to such situations. For example, poverty is the first and foremost reason of child labor.  Since many parents do not have the capability to support their household, children end up working to help support the family’s daily lives. Another reason for child labor is a poor education system.

When education is expensive or not readily available, impoverished parents do not see the benefit of learning and think that working is a better alternative. In the United States, there are many laws that prohibit child labor, however, in some countries, child labor laws exist, but are not enforced. Companies can thus take advantage of the cheap labor and further exploit it.

On the other hand, many organizations have been striving to put a stop to child labor by various programs. For example, the United Nations has been running campaigns to raise the awareness of child labor across various nations and airing them in global events such as the World Cup. Moreover, in order to raise the level of education in poverty stricken areas, the Red Cross and governments of third world countries have been recruiting teachers to volunteer in remote areas.

– Phong Pham

Sources: Child Labor Public Education Project, UN: Agencies Urge Greater Action, International Labor Rights Forum, UN: Child Labor
Photo: Addicting Info

 

Facts about Child Labor

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Human Trafficking in the Philippines

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New Jersey Congressman Chris Smith and his congressional team traveled to the Philippines earlier this week to meet with victims, aid workers and government officials in the regions hit by Super Typhoon Hayian.  The U.S. government has spent $50 million in emergency aid to the Philippines, providing much needed food, water and emergency medical care. However Smith says that rising human trafficking in the Philippines is also a major issue. The Philippines is a large source for both sex and labor human trafficking. The poor are especially vulnerable to human trafficking in the aftermath of natural disasters when they have lost their homes as well as their communities and are looking for a way out.

Congressman Ed Royce hosted a house committee on foreign affairs hearing in Fullerton California on November 27, 2013.  One of the speakers was Angela Guanzon, who traveled to the U.S. from the Philippines in 2006 in hopes of a better life. “I worked 18 hour days and had to sleep on the floor in a hallway,” Guanzon said. “My co-workers and I were threatened if we tried to escape.”

Human trafficking is what the State Department, law enforcement officials and NGOs are calling “modern day slavery.” Following narcotics, it is the second most profitable criminal enterprise worldwide and the Philippines has the second largest victim population. Many poverty stricken Filipino women leave their families in the hope supporting them from abroad.

Approximately 1 million Filipino men and women migrate each year, currently there are 10 million Filipinos living abroad. Many of these workers are subject to forced labor and harsh conditions, not just in the U.S., but in Asia and the Middle East as well.  Women who work in domestic positions often suffer violence, sexual abuse and rape. Traffickers use local recruiters in villages and urban centers who often pretend to be representatives of government sponsored employment agencies.  Furthermore, victims are required to pay “recruitment fees” that leave the workers vulnerable to forced labor, debt bondage and prostitution.

Many Filipinos live in poverty and are often swayed by recruiters who offer work and a better life. Furthermore, the vast majority of victims are also women and girls; 300,000-400,000 are women and 60,000 -100,00 are children; over 80% are females under the age of 18.

To combat this, the Philippines government created the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003 and has made minor improvements since then. For example, it increased funding to the anti-trafficking agency from $230,000 to $1.5 million and went from eight full time staff members to 37. They were also able to repatriate 514 Filipinos from Syria in the winter of 2012, 90% of whom were trafficked. Even with an upgraded version of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003, much work still needs to be done in the Philippines and in the U.S. to ensure that women and the poor in the Philippines are not vulnerable to modern day slavery.

– Lisa Toole

Sources: CNN, NJ.com, ABS CBN, HumanTrafficking.org
Photo: The Guardian