Environment and Health: Poor Waste Disposal

There is no specific definition of the term environment. Environment is the state of human health and safety, conditions of human life, the food chain, cultural sites and built structures, which are, or are likely to be, affected by the state of the elements of the environment and the interaction between them. Other people define environment as everything that makes up our surroundings and affects our ability to live on the earth including the air we breathe, the water that covers most of the earth's surface, the plants and animals around us, and much more. In recent years, scientists have been carefully examining the ways that people affect the environment. They have found that we are causing air pollution, deforestation, acid rain, and other problems that are dangerous both to the earth and to ourselves. These days, when you hear people talk about “the environment”, they are often referring to the overall condition of our planet, or how healthy it is, sometimes how bad is it? Millennium Development Goal seven is addressing the issues concerning environment which state, ‘Ensure Environmental Sustainability’. Melnick et al. (2005a) explained environmental sustainability as the situation of meeting current human needs without undermining the capacity of the environment to provide for those needs over the long term. The MDG seven consider the satisfaction of present generation as well as for the future generation.

Health and environment are good friends. If the environment is well kept, organized and clean no people will suffer from diseases like diarrhoea or any water borne diseases. If it is the opposite is when you will hear people suffering from diarrhoea, cholera and many others. However, environment is the key determinant of human health. Poor waste disposal in urban areas is a great cause of diseases. Take the City of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania as a case study. Cities have multiplied and expanded rapidly worldwide over the past two centuries (McMichael, 2000). Dar es Salaam is one of the cities expanding at tremendous speed. Thus, many cities are sources of creativity and technology, and they are the engines for economic growth. Cities are also sources of poverty, inequality, and health hazards from the environment (McMichael, 2000). The city of Dar es Salaam with an area of 1,393 square kilometres has a more than 4 million people (URT, 2003). Many people in this city are living in slums where it is difficult to collect waste and even to empty or drain their toilets. What is done during rain seasons, people just empty or open their latrines and allow waste to go with water to the down streams. It is during rain time when your hear outbreak of disease like Cholera and Diarrhoeal, and many others. Urban populations have long been incubators and gateways for infectious diseases. In the city, every year people are dying because of diarrhoeal disease and respiratory infections. All these diseases are due to urban poverty and poor adaptation to various vector-borne infections to urbanization. If the environment is kept clean, and people are following the procedures of cleaning their environment, it is hard to hear people dying because of diseases caused by dirty environment.

We must develop policies that ameliorate the existing environmental problems and educate people on how to get rid of water borne diseases. Government should also be strict in collecting waste in time.

References:
Melnick, D., Kakabadse-Navarro, Y., McNeely, J., Schmidt-Traub, G. & Sears, R. 2005b.The MIllenium Project: the positive health implications of improved environmental sustainability. (pdf) The Lancet, Vol. 365, 723-725.
McMichael, A. J. 2000. Urban Environment and Health in a World of Increasing Globalization: Issues for Developing Countries. Bulletin of the World Health Organization. Keppele Street, London.
URT, 2003. National Bureau of Statistics. Tanzania

Infectious Diseases

With 2015 only a decade away, the poorest countries face enormous hurdles to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for health, let alone the broader goal of health for all their citizens (Ruxin et al, 2005:618). This is very interesting inthe sence that we are focusing on Millenium Development Goal 6 which state, 'Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases'. Severity of disease is much connencted to poverty and lack of proper education.

Summarize how to prevent malaria
Malaria is a preventable and curable disease. Malaria causes over 1 million deaths, most in children younger than 5 years and 300 to 500 million episode of acute illness each year (Ruxin et al., 2005). This disease affects more than 50% of the words population and hits tropical Africa hardest. Malaria can be prevented through different ways such as
 Use of insecticide-treated bed-nets
 Indoor residual spraying
 Intermittent presumptive treatment during pregnancy
 Early diagnosis and prompt treatment with effective anti-malarias;
 Management of the environment to control mosquitoes;
 Health education; and
 Epidemic forecasting, prevention and response.

Prevention of other infectious diseases such as Tuberculosis and HIV/Aids effectively at the global level. Tuberculosis affects poor and vulnerable populations hardest and has worsened in recent years. Tuberculosis is a leading killer of people with HIV, and up to 80% of tuberculosis patients are HIV positive in countries with high prevalence of HIV. The spread of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis highlights the global threat of poor tuberculosis control and of the failure to treat all patients properly. Tuberculosis can be prevented by educating people the causes of tuberculosis and how to control it once someone gets it and how not to spread it to others. Other method is to ensure access to high quality tuberculosis drugs or medicines for affected people. Campaigns, seminars, TV programmes, Radio programmes, magazines, posters, to mention some, can help to sensitize people on TB.


HIV/AIDS. Currently there is no vaccine for HIV/AIDS. Different ways can help to prevent people from getting this disease. Proper condoms use all the time some one having sex. Behaviour change campaign in communities, schools, workplaces, and the mass media; Harm reduction measures to limit spread in injecting drug user,
Entiretroviral protocols to reduce mother-to-child transmission; And entiretroviral therapy to reduce morbidity and prolong the lives of those who already have the virus. Above all if possible stay without doing sex, if not possible be faithful to one partner.

Summary of my thoughts
This week topic is addressing Millennium Development Goal 6 which is Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases. I found that all the disease mentioned here affect the poor people most compared to the well off group. There are inadequate/deficient supplies of almost all important essential drugs to developing countries. The problem is poverty which obstructs peoples' ability to buy the required drugs. One of the best preventive measures which across all is education, people should first get proper education on how to prevent diseases, then others follows, prevention is better than cure.

Reference:
Ruxin, J., Paluzzi, J., Wilson, P., Tosan, Y., Kruk, M. & Teklehaimanot, A. 2005. Emerging consensus in HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and access to essential medicines. (pdf) The Lancet, Vol. 365 (12), 618-621.

Maternal and Child Health

Main reasons for maternal and child mortality in dveloping countries vary from one country to another. The first reason of maternal and child mortality in developing countries is deseases. Most of these deseases are preventable or treated. Another problem is undernutrition. Wmen before, at pregnance time and after delivery lack diet food which make them susceptible to different diseases.

Globally, more than half a million women die each year because of complication related to pregnancy and child birth. Of the estimated 536,000 maternal deaths worldwide in 2005, developing countries accounted for more than 99 percent. About half of the maternal deaths (265,000)occured in Sub-Saharan Africa alone and one third took place in South Asia (187,000). In the readings different causes of maternal and child mortality were enumerated such as complication of abortion, haemorrhage, obstructed labour, the hypertensive disorder of pregnance and many others.

In Tanzania for example, main causes include malaria and HIV/AIDs. Malaria is number one. this is so because most women go to hospital late and some of the health centers are very far, as the result most women die on the way to hospital. this is also no new born child. Because health centers are very far, most women found it hard to take theif children to hospital frequently as the result they fail to monitor the growth of their baby.

Child mortality is closely linked to povery. Is so because most death occured in developing coutries compared to developed one. Improvement in public health services are essential, including safe water and better sanitation. Education, especially for girls and mother, will also save children's lives. Raising income can help, but little will be achieved unless a greater effort is made to ensure that services reach those who need them most. Problem is here, most health services need payment, and most of people in developing countries are not able to pay, as the result they failed to take their children to hospital for treatment. In Tanzania women are not able to buy even mosquito nets.

Reduction of maternal and child mortality. Here a lot need to be done. Women and girls should be given education before starting reproduction, during pregnance and so forth. Governments should provide free health serivice to women and proper vaccination to children. In case of malaria, each women with a baby under 5 should be given free mosquito net. Health center should be close to people so as to reduce distance in searching for health services.

Infact there are similarities in reducing maternal and child mortality. Education can play role, if you educate girls or women about maternal you should also include education about taking care of the child. All these go hand in hand, is the same as killing two birds by one stone. If you provide mosquito net, it is for mother and the child.

References
www.childinfo.org/mortality_challenge.html
www.childinfo.org/maternal_mortlaity.html

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EQUALITY

Gender equality can affect access to healthcare services, education, environment and many others. As we have seen in the UNICEF data about education, there is inequality in access to education between girls and boys. The number varies between one county to the other. The worse situation the data is in developing countries. Grown et al. 2005 showed that, for a long time, researchers have recognized that educating girls is important for improving health, reducing genger inequality and empowering women. To do this a lot need to be done. For education improvement, there is a need of making school more affordable by reducing costs and offering targeted scholarships, building secondary schools close to where girls live and making schools girl-friendly (Grown, et al. 2005).

EDUCATION

Health and education are friends, are inseparable. With poor education people can end up with poor health as it is said in the moodle/unipid that, increased education has been an indication to improve health in different levels, at individual level, society level and at global level. The second UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) aimed at Achieving Universal Primary Education by 2015. The way I see, it is hard to achieve this goal at 100%, we still have a long way to go. If we evaluate the state of education across the globe, the image would shock many of us. Current estimates place the number of out of school children at 93 million which is more than the entire population of Phillipines (http://www.unicef.org/girlseducation /index_44870.html). The majority of these children are girls, and almost 80% of them live in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

From the Millenium Development Goals to the Dakar Declaration, countries have repeatedly committed themselves to achieving Universla Primary Education and eliminating gender disparites at all levels of education by 2025. The number of enrolment at different level of education is not the same as the number of school attendance. Take example of Tanzania in Table 5 of Education, primary school enrolment ratio (2000-2006) net was 99 and 97 for males and females respectively, while the primary school attendance ration net in the same years was 71 and 75 for males and females respectively. This figures shows that there are many who drop on the way. This data is for one country, other countries shows different trend. With this trend I don't believe if we can meet the second MDG which aimed at Achieving Universal Primary Education. We will work to a certain point not one hundred percent.

I spent sometimes listening to the video in the course and realize that education is very important and is a good thing for anyone to have. One video was composed in Ethiopia. Student in that video showed very good ambitious after school. Some were expecting to be teachers, to be doctors, to be pilots and even to be soldiers. According to the video there are different importance of education, life saving, life sustenance and education lay a foundation for peace and development.

Basing on the table the situation is shorking especially for women. Enrolment to all level of education is not the same. Men are leading in enrollment numbers in many countries. And when you look on the number of women completing different level of education is also discouraging. There are many cause of this which is not obvious in the table. It is very difficult to meet Millennium Development Goal with this speed. Women has a lot of setbacks including taking care of the family, susceptible to problems like marriage, pregnancies and culture. Some of the societies are not read to educate girls, there is a notion that parents or relatives will not benefit from girls because after education they will get marriage. thus the husband or the husband's relatives will benefit the fruits of education which the girl have acquired. Take Sub-Saharan Africa for example, the number of men and women completing different level of education in comparison with enrolment is decreasing, but for women is more decreasing.

My comments is that, education is a better contraceptive for poor health. To have healthy and energetic people, education should be the priority. When I was listening the video in the course I realize that, education is a tool for liberation. The video portrayed the student from Ethiopia with positive ambitions after completing their education. I explained this in the beginning. All these ambitious are hindered by different factors, culture, scio-economic factors, beliefs, corruption and politicalfactors.

Reference

http://www.unicef.org/sowc08_table_5.pdf

http://www.unicef.org/girlseducation/index_44870.htm

Poverty and Health

Poverty is defined by comparing issues or conditions. Phibbs (2003) defined poverty as having less than others in the society. In other words poverty is the feeling that someone do not have enough to use or to eat. According to the Constitution of the World Health Organization (2006), health is being in a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of diseases or infirmity.

Poverty and health are two words which can not be discussed in solation. These words are connected in one way or another. Poor people are the most susceptible to any kind of diseases such as malaria ni tropical countries, malnutrition, HIV/AIDS, to mention but a few. Thus, poor people are not able to pay for treatment, buying mosquitoe nets for malaria, or eating proper food, all these are symptoms of poverty. In the reading by Farmer et al (2006) it is noted that HIV/AIDS is a disease of the poor. It is so because the symptoms are more obvious to the poor than the well-off people.

The two concepts I see in the reading are structural violence and clinical medicine. Structural violence is a man-made situation which can be also be stopped. It is the situation against human rights. A study in Rwanda is a challenge to every one as it was also found in Haiti. These two places portray the same situation s which exist in other poor countries. With violence people cannot engage in production activities as the result poverty.

Rwanda is one of the densely populated country as Farmer et al (2006) pointed out in the reading, the main economic activity of this country and other countries is agriculture. As we all knows, agriculture is seasonal activity which does not give people stable income. The activity is mainly affected by climate, diseases and market situation. For this case income or yield generated is very low which can not give farmers stable income to pay for food and treatment. Both countries Haiti and Rwanda have experinced political violence which in one way or another retarded their economic development speed.

HIV/AIDS has recently worsened people's health and economic situation leading to young adult

death or lost their life, young people are the great labor force for the family and for any nation development. In spite of the availability significant resources to treat complications of HIV/AIDS infections in Africa, almost all patients enrolled on ART live in cities or towns (Farmer et al (2006). Indeed, some have noted that rapid treatment scale-up is likely to occur largely in urban settings, where infrastructure, though poor, is better than rural regions.

The second concept is clinical medicine. This is associated with delivering of treatment to the patients. Clinicians have different understanding of the causes of HIV/AIDS social. Most focus is placed on behaviours and lifestyles that place some one in HIV infections. Social factors such as poverty, gender inequality and racism need to be also taken aboard.

Lesson learnt from the artilce

The artical bring challenges associated with poverty and health. Poor people are the most vulnerable and victims of poor health and diseases. Thus, there is a need of helping the poor. Stopping structural violence is one step towards solving the problems associated with poverty including poor health conditions. Education is also a point to consider when supporitng the poor who accriding to the Farmer's reading is in rural areas.

References

Farmer et al. 2003. Structural Violence and Clinical Medicine. Plos Medicine.

Phibbs, S. 2003. The Impact of Poverty on Health. A Scan of Research Literature CPHI. Collected Papers.

Constitution of the World Health Organization, 2006. Basic Documents. Forty-fifth Edition, Supplement, October 2006.

Who is to blame poverty or disease?

Poverty and health go hand in hand, and poverty affects health and its determinats in many ways. I am exchange student at the University of Turku. I was born in Tanzania one of the country in developing countries. About 80% of population in Tanzania lives in rural areas where main economic activity is agriculture. Life in rural areas is very difficulty as it is faced with various problems such as climate, diseases, poor harvesting and hunger. Poverty is the main problem in most rural areas. People live with less than 2 US Dollars a day which is below the poverty line. Most of the villages in rural areas don't have health facilities. Health services are delivered in a very far distances. A person had to walk about more than 5 km searching for health services. Some people mostly pregnant women die on the way to hospital. Above all rural people don't have money to pay for health services. Lack of money which is the feature of poverty contributes to high death in rural areas. Some people die out of the diseases which can be treated. In this perspective who is to shoulder this problem.