Global Health Care
Despite incredible improvements in health since 1950, there are still a number of challenges, which should have been easy to solve.
These are some facts: One billion people lack access to health care systems.
• Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the number one group of conditions causing death globally. An estimated 17.5 million people died from CVDs in 2005, representing 30% of all global deaths. Over 80% of CVD deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries.
• Over 8 million children under the age of 5 die from malnutrition and mostly preventable diseases, each year.
• AIDS/HIV has spread rapidly. UNAIDS estimates for 2008 that there are roughly: o 33.4 million living with HIV o 2.7 million new infections of HIV o 2 million deaths from AIDS( (www.kff.org, 2011).
Today, about 34 million people are living with HIV/AIDS around the world2. Given the United States’ role as a leader in combating HIV/AIDS around the world, tracking Americans’ awareness and understanding of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic provides important feedback for policymakers, the media, nongovernmental organizations, and other major players in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Overall, survey trends show that Americans view HIV/AIDS as a more pressing health problem for the world than for the U.S., although the perceived sense of urgency has been on the decline for both the global and domestic epidemics. The sense of urgency about the global HIV/AIDS epidemic has declined steeply in the past five years; about one third of Americans ranked it as the world’s most urgent health issue from 2000 through 2006, a share that fell to 21 percent in 2009 and 13 percent today. Still, HIV/AIDS is ranked by Americans as the second most urgent health problem facing the world, second only to the share who named cancer (30 percent), which has ranked consistently at the top of the list since 2002. By contrast, Americans rank HIV/AIDS seventh on the list of the nation’s most urgent health problems (mentioned by 7
These are some facts: One billion people lack access to health care systems.
• Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the number one group of conditions causing death globally. An estimated 17.5 million people died from CVDs in 2005, representing 30% of all global deaths. Over 80% of CVD deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries.
• Over 8 million children under the age of 5 die from malnutrition and mostly preventable diseases, each year.
• AIDS/HIV has spread rapidly. UNAIDS estimates for 2008 that there are roughly: o 33.4 million living with HIV o 2.7 million new infections of HIV o 2 million deaths from AIDS( (www.kff.org, 2011).
Today, about 34 million people are living with HIV/AIDS around the world2. Given the United States’ role as a leader in combating HIV/AIDS around the world, tracking Americans’ awareness and understanding of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic provides important feedback for policymakers, the media, nongovernmental organizations, and other major players in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Overall, survey trends show that Americans view HIV/AIDS as a more pressing health problem for the world than for the U.S., although the perceived sense of urgency has been on the decline for both the global and domestic epidemics. The sense of urgency about the global HIV/AIDS epidemic has declined steeply in the past five years; about one third of Americans ranked it as the world’s most urgent health issue from 2000 through 2006, a share that fell to 21 percent in 2009 and 13 percent today. Still, HIV/AIDS is ranked by Americans as the second most urgent health problem facing the world, second only to the share who named cancer (30 percent), which has ranked consistently at the top of the list since 2002. By contrast, Americans rank HIV/AIDS seventh on the list of the nation’s most urgent health problems (mentioned by 7
Bibliography: Lean, M. (2005). Prognosis in Obesitymore; we all need to move a little, eat a little less. . British Medical Journal, Volume 330 , 1339. Shah, A. (2010, November 21). www.global issues.org. Retrieved August 09, 2010, from Obesity Global Issue. www.kff.org. (2011, July). Retrieved August 08, 2011, from Data Note: A Brief Look at Americans ' Perceptions of the Global Health HIV/AIDS Epidemic. www.who.org. (n.d.). Retrieved August 09, 2011, from WHO/Obesity-World Health Organization: www.who.int/topics/obesity/en/