It is been said a healthy nation is a strong nation. It is been acknowledged that a country having a health burden is less productive as healthy people are more efficient and productive than an unhealthy one. One such burden is a cardiovascular disease, a condition that involves the blocked or narrowed blood vessels that can lead to heart attack, and is the greatest health problem as it is a major cause of death in Australia. In this essay, we will discuss the social determinates of the health issue and will provide a conclusion relevant to it.
Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death in Australia, it is a condition that involves the narrowed or blocked vessels that can lead to stroke and heart attack. It has been identified over 1 million adults having the disease (Banks et al., 2019), every year around 29% of deaths had an underlying cause of the cardiovascular disease (O’Neil et al., 2013). Women are more likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease than men. 90% of women having one risk factorsuch as diabetes, high blood cholesterol, obesity, depression, etc. increases the risk of cardiovascular disease (Bucciearelli et., 2019). It was identified thatcardiovascular disease is the one of the main reason of death among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It has been identified Major risk factors of cardiovascular disease cannot be modified including advancing age, ethnicity, and genetic predisposition. Changeable risk factors comprise behavioural factors such as insufficient physical activity, unhealthy diet, excessive alcohol, and tobacco consumption. Other biomedical factors such as obesity, high cholesterol, kidney disease, diabetes, and obesity can also lead to cardiovascular disease. The women, age of 55 and man 40 are more likely to suffer from the disease but it is been researched that a healthy lifestyle can help in avoiding the risk of cardiovascular disease. People living in indigenous communities are more likely to suffer from cardiovascular heart diseases than non-indigenous Australian.
The connections between these chronic conditions are multifaceted and not well understood, however, it is known that an unhealthy lifestyle greatly increases the risk of cardiovascular disease. People with bad habits, diabetes, and obesity have twice the risk of developing cardiovascular disease. The reason why indigenous people suffer from the disease can be related to the lifestyle choices as well, as high alcohol consumption, poor diet, etc. is been known to be a major factor contributing to the risk of cardiovascular disease. Indigenous people usually don’t like to communicate with people outside their community (mainly because of the language barrier) and socio-economic factors affect their lifestyle choices, alcohol and Tabaco consumption, unhealthy diet cause issue of diabetes and economic barrier leads to depression, both of these factors increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, studies have shown that people suffering from depression develop heart-related problem more at higher rates than general population (Le Grande et al., 2017). Depression or other health-related problems (such as obesity, diabetes, stress, high blood pressure, etc.) lead to the number of changes in person body that can increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
The language barrier is the main reason for the indigenous people isolation from the society and not reaching out for help, though government and non-profit organization through many health campaigns in recent years have tried to educate people about the disease in an effort to decrease the fatal rates (Merone et al., 2019). These campaigns ensure that workers/volunteersare trained to use effective communication skills to converse with people in the communityand inform them about how unhealthy behaviour like eating an unhealthy diet, drinking too much alcohol and smoking cigarettes is increasing the risk of coronary disease. However, as mentioned earlier that there are much reasons for an individual to develop the cardiovascular disease, few suffer from the disease because of genetic, some from the lifestyle they live, but we cannot deny the fact that healthy lifestyle changes can help people to avoid the risk. Also, government should come up with a more effective approach to connect indigenous people with society, such as introducing more work opportunity for indigenous, reducing language barrier by utilizing technology and verbal and non-verbal communication skills, school, and workplace campaign to promote health priority to lift the cardiovascular disease burden to ensure healthy nation.
Cardiovascular disease is biggest health burden in Australia. Indigenous community is more likely to suffer from cardiovascular diseases than non-indigenous Australian, because of lifestyle choices and language barrier and socio-economic factors affect their lifestyle choices, increasing the risk of the disease at higher rates. The government should come up with a more effective plan to reduce the language barrier by utilizing technology and effective communication skills in school, and workplace campaignsto promote health priority.
Banks, E., Joshy, G., Korda, R.J., Stavreski, B., Soga, K., Egger, S., Day, C., Clarke, N.E., Lewington, S. and Lopez, A.D., 2019. Tobacco smoking and risk of 36 cardiovascular disease subtypes: fatal and non-fatal outcomes in a large prospective Australian study. BMC medicine, 17(1), p.128.
Bucciarelli, V., Caterino, A.L., Bianco, F., Caputi, C.G., Salerni, S., Sciomer, S., Maffei, S. and Gallina, S., 2019. DEPRESSION AND CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE: THE DEEP BLUE SEA OF WOMEN'S HEART. Trends in cardiovascular medicine.
Foundation, T., 2020. Cardiovascular Risk Profile of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. [Online] The Heart Foundation. Available at: https://www.heartfoundation.org.au/about-us/what-we-do/heart-disease-in-australia/cardiovascular-risk-profile-of-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-peoples
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Le Grande, M., Jackson, A.C., Ski, C.F., Thompson, D.R. and Brown, A., 2019. Depression, Cardiovascular Disease and Indigenous Australians. In Culture, Diversity and Mental Health-Enhancing Clinical Practice (pp. 167-184). Springer, Cham.
Merone, L., McDermott, R., Mein, J., Clarke, P. and McDonald, M., 2019. Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease in Minority Indigenous Populations: A Systematic Review. Heart, Lung and Circulation.
O’Neil, A., Stevenson, C.E., Williams, E.D., Mortimer, D., Oldenburg, B. and Sanderson, K., 2013. The health-related quality of life burden of co-morbid cardiovascular disease and major depressive disorder in Australia: findings from a population-based, cross-sectional study. Quality of life research, 22(1), pp.37-44.