Medicine and Health: Public Health Issues

Running Head: MEDICINE AND HEALTH2

Medicine and Health

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Current issues in public health include cancer that kills more people in the low and middle income countries than tuberculosis, HIV and malaria combined (Detels R. 2015). This is because only a small proportion of resources are allocated to the cancer treatment and prevention. Another current issue of concern is AIDS. Currently, there are higher rates of HIV infections more than before. This is because only half of the 35 million people infected of the disease are aware of their conditions hence they don’t know the risk of spreading it to the rest of the negative population. Just to mention, other remaining current issues includes mental health, family planning, medical technology, global health security and infectious diseases which is my main area of concern.
Infectious diseases are one of the most common current health issues. It peaked when the first case of Ebola was reported in the United States in September 2014 and also the recent outbreak of measles that affected seventeen states. This made the state health departments to improve the prevention and control of these diseases. Recently, the infectious diseases sparked a lot of confusion and misunderstanding due to strongly opposed methods of quarantine and isolating imposed on infected individuals. However, vaccination can be used to control some of the infectious diseases despite the great challenges faced like ingredients allergies and opposition from religious and cultural aspects (Detels R. 2015).
Epidemiology has contributed to the control of these diseases through the historical study of these diseases, community diagnosis, studying the working of health services, estimation from the common experience to know risk factors of the disease, identification of syndrome from the phenomena of the distribution and in the search for causes of these diseases.
Personally, this information is relevant because it equips individuals with the knowledge concerning current health status hence helping individuals to improve their quality of life.
References
Detels, R. (2015). Oxford Textbook of Global Public Health. Oxford University Press, USA.