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HowToPreventHeartDisease.com |
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The Impact of Heart Disease On Economy Cardiovascular disease, also known as heart and circulatory disease, covers all diseases that affect the heart and circulation. This includes conditions such as coronary heart disease (angina and heart attack), heart failure, high blood pressure and stroke. Being the leading cause of death globally, cardiovascular disease has been the problem for wealthy and industrialized countries. 90 percent of Americans adults have at least one risk factor for heart disease. According to the report released on September 14, 2009 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost all Americans have high blood pressure, high cholesterol and high blood glucose, are overweight, smoke or have too little exercise. For the year of 2006, it was estimated that 81,100,000 people in the United States have one or more kinds of cardiovascular disease. In the United Kingdom (UK), heart disease costed the economy in 2004 some 29 billion pounds a year in healthcare expenditure and lost productivity too. The figure was based on the calculations made by Oxford University’s Health Economics Research Centre on all UK residents with diagnosed cardiovascular disease in 2004. The healthcare budget that the UK spends on cardiovascular disease is the highest among other European Union countries. However, the trend has somehow changed in recent years. A report issued by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) on March 22, 2010 revealed that more than 80 percent of deaths worldwide related to cardiovascular disease now occur in developing countries. Furthermore, nearly 30 percent of all deaths in developing countries are caused by cardiovascular disease.
Since cardiovascular disease reduces productivity, it would certainly threaten the economic growth of developing countries in the long run. The researchers who wrote the report also blamed lack of awareness and lack of leadership as the main barriers for combating the growing epidemic of cardiovascular disease in the developing countries. Most governments, global health institutions and development agencies in developing countries have mostly neglected cardiovascular disease when they have invested in the healthcare services. It is believed that if one could follow a healthy lifestyle and controlling one’s cardiovascular risk factors, much of heart disease could be prevented. Things like eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, staying away from smoking and secondhand smoke, seeking health care regularly, reducing stress, maintaining healthy cholesterol levels, and monitoring blood pressure have been suggested to people for years by the health experts. Sound very simple, but the reality could be much complex. Firstly, behavior change is never an easy task, especially when individual’s choice is continuously influenced by social and environmental factors. Secondly, people might not have the resources or access to relevant healthcare. Thirdly, governments and other organizations might find it hard to promote these actions. Fierce competition for scarce resources among many health and development priorities often makes implementation capacity for policies, programs and health services inadequate. Lastly, the context is important too. Sometimes, strategies working in one setting might just not work in another. As suggested in the report, governments should create environments to promote heart healthy lifestyle choices to help reduce the risk of chronic diseases. They are also responsible for building public health infrastructure and health systems with sufficient resources to carry out programs that would effectively detect and reduce risk of and manage cardiovascular disease. Meanwhile, private sectors could voluntarily help people reduce intake of contributors to risk factors of cardiovascular disease such as salt, sugar, saturated fats, and trans fats in their diets. More importantly, people should also play their part by adhering to the experts’ advices as listed above to control own cardiovascular risk factors. The success of curbing growing epidemic of cardiovascular disease in developing countries would require combined effort from governments, private sectors and people themselves as well as adequate resources in terms of financial, technical and human sustained over many years.
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