Matthew Price
Intro to Public Health
Stephanie Fugal
November 12, 2012
Public
Health Community Trends
I was able to speak with Steve
Alder, the chief of Public Health at the University of Utah. His primary focus is on Global health with a
focus on health disparities, but we were able to discuss several of the public health
trends in the state of Utah.
The first public health trend that
stood out to Steve Alder is obesity.
There are too many people in the state of Utah today struggling with
obesity. Obesity leads to other problems
that could be prevented such as diabetes and hypertension. This causes a challenging health structure to
face as obesity often times needs to be approached from a parental aspect. If the parents can learn how to feed their
kids healthily then obesity could be greatly diminished.
The second community trend that Dr.
Alder pointed out was the challenges with the health care delivery system. The current health care system is too
expensive. The rich are able to pay for
their health care, but the poor go un-helped with the current costs. Dr. Alder’s point of view is that there are
many benefits to the affordable care act, but at the same time many problems
with it. Health care does need to become
more affordable to all.
The third community trend has a lot to
do with the second in that there are too many communities that do not have
access to care and other services. The
lack of care leads to the spread of diseases that could easily be prevented
such as the flu. Injuries and joint
problems also develop and cause a cascading effect. These cascading effects cause problems later
in life that if caught earlier could have been prevented. Health care needs to be more affordable and
accessible to all.
The fourth community trend was the
emerging of infections and disease. Not
only the emerging of infectious diseases, but also the re-emerging of
infectious diseases such as malaria.
Malaria was once thought to have been eradicated in the United States,
but in recent years it has been re-emerging.
SARS and TB are both diseases that are also growing within the United
States. These diseases are all
preventable if they are detected early. Lack of affordable care is one of the causes
of the spread of these diseases.
The fifth community trend is the
life style of those in the community.
People are not eating nor sleeping right. Most are hurrying from place to place and
eating foods that are not beneficial to their health. Trying to get jobs done or simply socializing
everyone is staying up too late and not getting an adequate night’s sleep. A quote I once heard is… in college you can
choose two of the three: good grades, friends, or sleep. Often times it ends up being sleep put back.
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