Public Health Reaction Paper
Assignment #2: PH Reaction Paper
Chasiti Reid
PUBH 102
Dr. Corwin
December 1, 2012
(a) Public health is preventing injury and disease, prolonging life and protecting populations by promoting health through product safety and in physical, social and economic environments. Responsibility for promoting the health of the public is shared between the government and communities. Public health focuses on the health of populations, rather than individuals. It is concerned with wide-ranging strategies that concentrate on the prevention of injuries and disease. Public health in the 20th century have improved the quality of life, increased the life expectancy, and the reduction or elimination of many communicable diseases in populations.
The topic “taxing sugar beverages” is a public health issue because Americans drank as much as 13 billion gallons of sugar-sweetened beverages a year, which is the largest source of added sugar and excess calories in the American diet and disputably making it the single largest dietary factor in the current epidemic of obesity. These sugary beverages are inexpensive to buy, but are costly to the U.S because $174 billion per year is spent on diabetes treatment and $147 billion on other obesity-related health problems. Implementing the penny-per-ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages can have the potential to reduce obesity, diabetes and heart disease, while saving $17 billion in healthcare costs over ten years and generating $13 billion a year in tax revenue. The fact that researchers estimated that the penny-per-ounce tax could actually reduce new cases of diabetes by 2.6%, as many as 95,000 coronary heart events, 8,000 strokes, and 26,000 premature deaths proves that the excessive consumption of sugary beverages is a public health issue (“A Penny-Per Ounce.” 2012).
(b) Social justice focuses on the “overall fairness of a society” in how it divides and distributes common advantages and common burdens. It coincides with the moral
Chasiti Reid
PUBH 102
Dr. Corwin
December 1, 2012
(a) Public health is preventing injury and disease, prolonging life and protecting populations by promoting health through product safety and in physical, social and economic environments. Responsibility for promoting the health of the public is shared between the government and communities. Public health focuses on the health of populations, rather than individuals. It is concerned with wide-ranging strategies that concentrate on the prevention of injuries and disease. Public health in the 20th century have improved the quality of life, increased the life expectancy, and the reduction or elimination of many communicable diseases in populations.
The topic “taxing sugar beverages” is a public health issue because Americans drank as much as 13 billion gallons of sugar-sweetened beverages a year, which is the largest source of added sugar and excess calories in the American diet and disputably making it the single largest dietary factor in the current epidemic of obesity. These sugary beverages are inexpensive to buy, but are costly to the U.S because $174 billion per year is spent on diabetes treatment and $147 billion on other obesity-related health problems. Implementing the penny-per-ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages can have the potential to reduce obesity, diabetes and heart disease, while saving $17 billion in healthcare costs over ten years and generating $13 billion a year in tax revenue. The fact that researchers estimated that the penny-per-ounce tax could actually reduce new cases of diabetes by 2.6%, as many as 95,000 coronary heart events, 8,000 strokes, and 26,000 premature deaths proves that the excessive consumption of sugary beverages is a public health issue (“A Penny-Per Ounce.” 2012).
(b) Social justice focuses on the “overall fairness of a society” in how it divides and distributes common advantages and common burdens. It coincides with the moral
Cited: "A Penny-Per-Ounce Tax on Sugar Sweetened Beverages Keeps the Doctors Away and Saves Money." Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Dec. 2012. <http://www.mailman.columbia.edu/news/penny-ounce-tax-sugar-sweetened-beverages-keeps-doctor-away-and-saves-money>. Faden, Ruth and Shebaya, Sirine, “Public Health Ethics”. The Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL= http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2010/entries/publichealth-ethics/