The Burden Of Noncommunicable Diseases
After my last blog post, I became increasingly interested in the recent rapid urbanization and the large shifts in population from rural/suburban to urban areas. The drastically different lifestyle that comes with such a change has led to heightened levels of obesity, stroke, stress, cancer, and other noncommunicable diseases among Los Angeles County and the global population. While this may seem obvious, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are responsible for 60% of deaths globally with this number expected to grow an additional 17% over the next ten years. Tobacco, alcohol, nutrition, and physical activity are clearly responsible for the majority of these deaths. With this in mind, increased health promotion strategies are crucial and needed to create political, economic, and environmental conditions to prevent NCDs.
Now, I'd like to take a look at how Angelenos historically have romanticized some communicable diseases, such as tuberculosis, in a way that almost makes them desirable. While I completely agree that most illnesses are often stigmatized, I do think it's worth noting that it's the diseases that aren't transmittable that are killing the most. I often see that many people often try and marginalize or blame a specific group for an outbreak, but in reality, it's the social and physical environment everyone has collectively created that is doing the real damage.
What rhetoric do Angelenos use to depict communicable/noncommunicable diseases?
How can we modify our health care system to prioritize the prevention of NCDs?
How can we empower Angelenos to individually and collectively to prevent NCDs regardless of socioeconomic status?
Sources:
https://www.who.int/gho/ncd/en/
Now, I'd like to take a look at how Angelenos historically have romanticized some communicable diseases, such as tuberculosis, in a way that almost makes them desirable. While I completely agree that most illnesses are often stigmatized, I do think it's worth noting that it's the diseases that aren't transmittable that are killing the most. I often see that many people often try and marginalize or blame a specific group for an outbreak, but in reality, it's the social and physical environment everyone has collectively created that is doing the real damage.
What rhetoric do Angelenos use to depict communicable/noncommunicable diseases?
How can we modify our health care system to prioritize the prevention of NCDs?
How can we empower Angelenos to individually and collectively to prevent NCDs regardless of socioeconomic status?
Sources:
https://www.who.int/gho/ncd/en/
I think it's interesting that environment has such a strong connection with health and wellness. This makes me think a lot about LA and all the times we've talked about the stereotypes surrounding LA's landscape ( sun and beaches, open space) and the stereotypes about health/wellness in LA ( juice, hiking, etc). I feel like these stereotypes are a direct contrast from the reality of healthcare across LA and the world.
ReplyDeleteI'm also interested in how things like NCD occur more or less frequently in certain populations/areas and what that can tell us about inequity in healthcare, and what specific aspects of these healthcare policies need to be addresed to better serve a community.
While I agree that it’s become normal for certain groups to marginalize others as a scapegoat in times of outbreak of communicable diseases, I don’t know if I’ve seen such things when discussing noncommunicable diseases. I think that it’s often reflected that many noncommunicable diseases stem from environment, which many people will then simply label as “their problem” when things like alcoholism and obesity begin to affect underprivileged areas, but it’s not necessarily the same thing as scapegoating. I’m not sure I know of a particularly Angeleno way of discussing disease, but the one connection I can draw is the media and how the city sometimes glorifies certain diseases - which inevitably spreads to the rhetoric of the general population. I think that certain problems with NCDs and healthcare go way beyond a simple fix because many of the problems in terms of differences across class/race are because of deeper issues such as access to quality food/presence of liquor stores, etc… So, I would say that a good place to start would be looking deeper into the problem at the root of it.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up, I definitely have heard negative rhetoric towards people with communicable diseases as well as people with noncommunicable diseases. It just depends on the disease. For example, HIV/AIDS (a communicable disease) has had such a negative stigma, but I've also heard negative stigmas towards people with diabetes. Diabetes (a non communicable disease) runs in my family, so I grew up with my mom constantly talking about how my relatives with diabetes fail to properly care for themselves, fail to practice self control, etc. She may have spoken about diabetes and our relatives with diabetes to prevent me from getting it, but it definitely formed a negative idea of it growing up.
ReplyDeleteI think our health care system is already trying to prevent NCD's with promoting good eating habits (the food pyramid), as well as regulating school lunches; however, these have clearly been unsuccessful. I think this is in part because the health care system can't compete with other industries such as the fast food industry. Poorer families simply cannot afford to buy their children organic fruits and vegetables and salads at McDonalds cost more than a burger so obviously this makes it harder to be healthier. I researched the associations between socioeconomic status and diabetes-related mortality, and according to a study, "having less than a high school education was associated with a twofold higher mortality from diabetes, and having a family income below poverty level was associated with a twofold higher mortality." The risk also increased with blacks and hispanics. (I linked the source at the bottom)
Trying to encourage people to "be healthier" regardless of socioeconomic is a challenge because socioeconomic differences have proven to be huge risk factors. We could somehow encourage people to buy fruits and vegetables if there was a cost incentive or something of the sort, but I am not completely sure how it would work or be enacted.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2848262/
Angelenos do not talk openly about diseases making it hard for any type of progress to made within the field. If we destigmatized talking about diseases then there would be no reason to have to empower Angelenos. If nobody feels shameful about contracting diseases then it would not take any empowerment to come out and talk about them. Our healthcare system could make more forms of affordable treatment/ testing.
ReplyDeleteLike Rachel I think it's very interesting how much someone's environment can affect their health or lack there of. I feel like the dichotomy between the overall healthy lifestyle of LA's stereotypes such as beautiful beaches, sunsets, hiking/detoxing/juicing, etc and the reality of its landscape with many factors like pollution/smog, malnutrition, etc affecting most people in Los Angeles. I feel like many causes of NCDs are overlooked because for many people there's no real way around them like air pollution and malnutrition, for many lower income families finding a healthy, cost affective, and fresh meal for your family is almost impossible which creates a space where there is no real option besides fast foods or cheaper foods that have less nutrition to avoid obesity and type 2 diabetes. I think we need to start looking deeper into the main cause of the problem and to find out who is most at risk for these diseases.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think that one of the reasons communicable diseases are talked about more than noncommunicable diseases (obesity is what I have in mind as I write this) is because we have created this perception that certain noncommunicable diseases are 1) the fault of the person who is suffering from them and/or 2) not really diseases. Because we have these ideas about “acceptable” or “sympathetic” ways of contracting illness, it is much easier for us to condemn or ignore those cases that do not fit that definition of perceived innocence or plain old rotten luck.
ReplyDeleteContinuing to think about obesity, I think any attempts to solve that issue would meet at a topical crossroads between modification of our healthcare system and research into food deserts and other potential reasons for unhealthy eating habits. I personally think that obesity is an especially stigmatized condition and one with quite a clear-cut correlation to socioeconomic status (healthier food is generally more expensive and less accessible than McDonald’s etc.). Beyond those facts, though, I don’t feel like I have a ton of background on noncommunicable diseases in Los Angeles; I’d like to look more into the background of these problems in LA because I don’t currently feel like I know enough to be able to come up with ways to empower citizens to take action to start solving these problems.
I think it's interesting that some noncommunicable diseases are seen/talked about not really as diseases but more as choices/lifestyle (esp things like obesity or addiction which are heavily informed by the environment in which you grew up/live and genetics). I think that generally, improving our health care system as a whole would help prevent deaths from noncommunicable diseases because they might be more able to be treated early or prevented than communicable ones.
ReplyDeletemy junior speech kinda touched on this. Going off of others and the topic of obesity/diabetes/food, it is interesting to analyze who has access to what food in certain communities. For example, there seems to be more and more fast food chains and unhealthy dietary options in lower income communities. Diabetes, heart disease, obesity, etc are all related to the poor dietary options presented to lower income communities and this is often Blacks and Hispanics. It is simply a fact that healthy food options tend to be expensive and for many, unaffordable. While I also did not have a direct and fast solution in my speech, there are ways to be proactive and preventative. A great opportunity is to raise awareness around dietary choices in barber shops/salons. This is a way to reach an audience who may not have healthcare that can provide them with the proper medical attention they may need. Barber shops are safe spaces for many communities and these small steps can create a huge difference in people's lifestyles and health choices. Also in the long run, many people would rather spend a little more money on healthier food rather than spending thousands of dollars in hospital bills that can be avoided in the first place. If this message can be reached by people who many not be aware of the consequences of eating poorly, perhaps the solution to the issue will be presented prematurely.
ReplyDeleteWhat comes to mind for me in terms of noncommunicable diseases is the opioid epidemic. I think the reason these diseases are not talked about as much as communicable diseases is because people think that noncommunicable diseases are ones that those afflicted have control over and thus, their fault if they contract them and/or die from them. I read an article in the Economist for GHR about the Opioid Epidemic and it clearly laid out ways to decrease the amount of overdoses and deaths related to opioids (many countries in Europe have already enacted these suggestions and potential solutions and in Switzerland, for example, heroin deaths dropped by 79% in four years after a certain treatment was put in place) However, the reason there has been a lot of pushback in regards to these solutions that might improve opioid-related-deaths statistics is because people often assume that drug addicts are bad and/or criminals and that their addiction is their fault. The article also talked about a man named Jose Benitez, the director of needle exchange in Kensington, Philadelphia (a very poor district of Philadelphia where drugs are sold everywhere and all the time, in broad daylight), who wanted to create a safe injection facility but the idea was widely rejected because as the deputy attorney-general put it, it would just be “a taxpayer-sponsored haven to shoot up.”
ReplyDeleteI wanted to do some research on LA and I was unable to find any needle exchange facilities here in Los Angeles which I think is really interesting. The drug epidemic may not be at the top of the list concerning NCDs and their urgency in LA but I think it’s really odd that LA wouldn’t be doing more to fight this epidemic.
This post reminded me of a documentary we watched a few years ago about environmental racism, although that documentary was focused on the impact of pollution and industrial waste on poor communities and communities of color in the South, mostly. I’m interested in how environmental racism, and the disproportionate concentration of environmentally dangerous substances in areas where the majority of residents are people of color, continues to impact LA county health. An article from The Guardian in 2016 detailed over 300 case of lead poisoning in the Jordan Downs housing project in Watts, which was built on a previous industrial site that was never adequately cleaned up to ensure the safety of residents. Although LA may not have as much industrial infrastructure anymore as some other cities, I wonder how past industrial systems continue to impact the health of people around the county. According to most of the articles I saw online, Watts has been particularly burdened by the effects or concentrated pollution, toxic waste, and water contamination, although not a lot of news came up in major newspapers about this issue as it applies to LA.
ReplyDeleteGoing off of what Emma said above, I think that it is interesting that NCD's like obesity and addiction are seen as choices in someones life rather than the diseases. I think changing our healthcare system might not only help prevent the deaths from NCD's but will also change the perspective of NCD's from choices to diseases. Adding something fairly obvious to us to this, I would also say that simply trying to destigmatize and dissolve the stereotypes attached to NCD's will be a step towards getting more awareness and treatment towards them.
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ReplyDeleteAngelenos have depicted communicable disease is a terrible light. Lux mentioned a while ago on my blog post about how a movie called Contagion was an especially bad representation of communicable disease. We can modify our health care system to prioritize the prevention of NCDs by making sure people stay healthy through exercise and eating healthy. Perhaps even limiting the advertisement enterprise of fast food corporations. We can empower Angelenos to individually and collectively prevent NCDs regardless of socioeconomic status by perhaps using an incentive.
I'm interested in how, as Rachel mentioned, the intense hype surrounding health and wellness in LA places a unique pressure on residents to adhere to that lifestyle...and if they don't - if they happen to develop an NCD like diabetes, which is commonly associated, as Alexis said, with improper care and lack of self control - will LA shun them? Is it more shameful in LA to develop an NCD than in other places because of the city's identity as a wellness hub? And does this discourage Angelenos from reporting illnesses and seeking treatment?
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