Public health efforts play a vital role in disease prevention, prolonging life and promoting health in the developed and developing world. Particularly in New York City, public health has recently been a hot topic in areas such as public health ethics such as Bloomberg’s Soda Ban as an effort to combat obesity. It is therefore important that we understand the public health issues that our society faces in order to combat them properly.
One of the main public health problems the United States is currently facing is that there aren’t nearly enough doctors to care for the population. According to a study conducted by the U.S Department of Health and Human Services it is predicted that if the current system for delivering primary care was to remain fundementally the same by 2020 there will be a projected shortage of 20,400 primary care physicians. This problem of primary care providers can be traced to the fact that not many medical students choose primary care as their career path. Less prestige, high debt loads and a knowledge that primary care providers work in a non-sustainable business model which forces them to see an excessive number of patients per day in order to meet overhead and still garner an income about one half that of the specialist significantly discourages medical school graduates from selecting primary care as a career. Other reasons for the doctor shortage include that older primary care providers are retiring early and many others are closing their practices and seeking employment at local hospitals. Another reason for the projected shortage of primary care is the implementation of the Affordable Care Act due to which millions of formerly uninsured mena and women will have access to healthcare and will need to be absorbed in this fraying primary care network.
Another important problem in public health today is antibiotic resistance. The World Health Organization calls antibiotic resistant infections one of the biggest threats to global health. Antibiotic resistance occurs when an antibiotic has lost its ability to effectively control or kill bacterial growth and continues to multiply in the presence of therapeutic levels of an antibiotic. When an antibiotic is used bacteria that can resist have a greater chance of survival which causes a selective pressure for survival for the resistant strains of bacteria. The current higher-levels of antibiotic-resistant bacteria are attributed to the overuse and abuse of antibiotics. In some countries and over the Internet, antibiotics can be purchased without a doctor’s prescription. Even worse, patients often are prescribed antibiotics unnecessarily. Antibiotic resistancee threatens the effective prevention and treatment of an ever-increasing range of infections caused by bacteria, parasites, viruses and fungi. Each year, approximately two million people become infected with bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics, and at least 23,000 of those people die.
Another concerning problem in public health are food deserts. Food deserts are urban neighborhoods and rural towns without ready access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food. Instead of supermarkets and grocery stores, these communities may have no food access or are served only by fast food restaurants and convenience stores that offer few healthy and affordable food options. This lack of access to healthy food contributes to a poor diet and can lead to higher levels of obesity and other diet-related diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease. USDA’s Economic Research Service estimates that 23.5 million people live in food deserts. About 13.5 million of those people are identified as low-income.
