Issues impacting health and development, Biology

Assignment Help:

Issues Impacting Health and Development

Poverty and malnutrition are the leading causes of high maternal and child mortality rates in developing countries. Together, they seriously impair the resistance of the body to infections. In children, malnutrition impacts their learning ability besides leading to high dropouts from schools. This reduces the returns to investment in education. The average real rate of social return on primary schooling in low income countries was estimated at 24 per cent (World Bank, 1981). If improved health status can be ensured through proper nutritional and health care, the rate of return on education can be improved. Better health implies that less resources are required to be devoted for curative health care. Resources thus spared can be spent for other productive purposes. Realising the severity of the problem, the millennium development goals (MDGs) of the UN included three goals to be targeted for achievement by 2015 in the health sector. These are

(i) reduction of under five child mortality by two-thirds;

(ii) improvement in maternal health by achieving reduction in maternal mortality rate by three-quarters;

(iii) combat diseases like malaria, HIV/AIDS and other diseases by reducing their incidence by one-half reversing the spread of such major diseases.
To achieve the above goals, massive funding and policy initiatives are required. Such initiatives, besides focusing on  improvement in consumption/nutritional levels, can be centred around the major diseases. Tuberculosis and Malaria are identified to be among the major diseases contributing to adult mortality. Acute respiratory infections is identified to be a major child killer. These diseases are known to hurt rural people more than city dwellers suggesting that the focus of policy initiatives should centre more on the rural population. Some simple measures/provisions identified to prevent the mortality arising from these diseases are: bed-nets, affordable antibiotics, trained birth attendants and spreading awareness on basic hygiene.
However, due to the large magnitude of the problem, the resources required to implement even such simple measures are huge. Along with the issue of  limited resources, two other issues confronting the task of effective health delivery are
inequity and  inefficiency. While the former refers to the problem of the rural health systems not having enough staff and resources dedicated to women and children, the latter refers to the anomaly on account of non-integration of vertical
programmes for specific diseases with the general health systems. All these concerns have received wide attention everywhere and specific suggestions have been made to tackle these problems.


Related Discussions:- Issues impacting health and development

What is the radula, What is the radula? What is the function of this organ?...

What is the radula? What is the function of this organ? Some molluscs have a tongue-like structure with harsh saliences similar to small teeth. This structure is called radula

What are the proteins, Q. What are the proteins? How can the protein divers...

Q. What are the proteins? How can the protein diversity of living beings be described? Proteins are molecules made of sequences of amino acids bound by a peptide bond. The g

Difference between the exocrine and endocrine gland, Q. What is the differe...

Q. What is the difference between the exocrine gland and the endocrine gland? Endocrine gland is a gland whose secretions are called as hormones that are collected by the blood

Mrna levels and rna species, You are working at a large, well funded resear...

You are working at a large, well funded research institute with the latest biochemical techniques available. The focus of your research is to find a specific mutation, or set of mu

Biochemistry, tertiary structure of protein

tertiary structure of protein

Find the electric potential, (a) Find the electric potential, taking zero a...

(a) Find the electric potential, taking zero at infinity, at the upper right corner (the corner without a charge) of the rectangle in the figure. (Let y = 3.7 cm and x = 6.7 cm.)

What will happen without enough insulin, Q. What will happen without enough...

Q. What will happen without enough insulin? Without enough insulin two things can happen. Firstly, the cells of the body will be unable to use the glucose in the blood for ener

Thumb rule for dietary management, Q. Thumb rule for dietary management? ...

Q. Thumb rule for dietary management? The thumb rule for dietary management is to advice the patient to try to cut down or avoid:  Red meats. Organ meats such as br

Write Your Message!

Captcha
Free Assignment Quote

Assured A++ Grade

Get guaranteed satisfaction & time on delivery in every assignment order you paid with us! We ensure premium quality solution document along with free turntin report!

All rights reserved! Copyrights ©2019-2020 ExpertsMind IT Educational Pvt Ltd