I was able to speak to a public Health professional named Jonathan
E. Feilding, who works at the Department for Public Health in Los Angeles
County. I was curious about the top five disease trends and he was able to give
me some information on their findings. The top five public health Disease
trends for Los Angeles California are as follows:
1.
Cost of Care for aging populations has
increased. Prices for health care have increased by 43% in the last 6 years.
Because of this issue, people, especially elderly people in los angels are not
willing to deal with the rise of prices in order to receive appropriate health
care making them more susceptible to sickness and disease. There is also a
burden placed on these people to receive the health care that is needed because
of the inflation of price to stay healthy.
2.
The epidemic of obesity. Jonathan gave me some
statistics to look at to get an idea of what America is actually dealing with
when it comes to obesity. He said that because obesity causes certain illnesses
such as heart disease and diabetes, Americans including people from Los Angeles
are affected with this issue. More than 1 in 3 adults (81 million) of Americans
live with cardiovascular disease because of obesity and the affects that it has
to cause the body to malfunction.
3.
Continuing substance abuse problems. In Los Angeles
as well as all of America, some people have problems with substance abuse and
drugs. He told me that if substance abuse is continuous for a long period of
time it could cause liver disease and other harmful affects on the body. 52% of
Americans are reported to be current and continuous alcoholics.
4.
Impacts of population growth/density. Because of
the huge population in Los Angeles, there is a lot more people that need care
and not everyone has proper treatment. Disease is spread more easily because of
the concentration of people and spread of disease that comes with that. Because of this Environmental exposures are
also larger including air pollutants and toxic exposures causing illness
leading to disease.
5.
Increasing disparities. In Los Angeles the
social classes are evident. The disparity between the rich and the poor is
growing and creating problems for the poor to get the care they need. They
aren’t able to get the jobs that are needed in order to make the money
applicable to good health care, because of less education. In turn this makes
it difficult for those of the lower class to stay healthy when they are not
regularly vising the doctor and getting treated to minor illnesses that can
turn into chronic disease.
Abbey Nelsen
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