Everything in the world has some consequences. Today, our world is moving fast; the speed of economic boom in many developing nations is amazing. Unfortunately, there are some negative consequences of this economic progress. One of those is the increase of chronic illness in those countries.
Generally, most people in developing nations die from acute diseases: illnesses that come with severe and sudden symptoms. For example, miners in developing nations are less likely to have protective gear for their respiratory systems during work and therefore would have a higher chance of acquiring acute respiratory conditions than those in developed countries. This trend of increasing chronic disease deaths in poorer nations enables us to make multiple assumptions about the well-being of their citizens.
According to The New York Times, deaths from chronic diseases have risen 50 percent in low- and middle-income countries. This is interesting because of changes in mortality rate patterns; death rates from infectious diseases such as malaria or tuberculosis are declining. Both acute and infectious diseases are disappearing because of the increased access of health campaigns to general populations, including hand washing, sanitation and vaccines. Also, the infant mortality rates have rapidly declined, which contributes to the longer life expectancy in those countries.
In the absence of acute diseases, chronic diseases are ravaging these nations. Chronic diseases have symptoms that accumulate over a longer period of time. Due to their enduring symptoms, chronic illnesses often require patients to receive treatments regularly. These kinds of deaths are generally more common in developed nations like the U.S. It takes a long time for people to be hit by these diseases. For example, people here usually don’t get a heart attack at age 20.
Unfortunately, it’s mostly the younger people who suffer from chronic illnesses in developing nations. The lack of health treatment centers in the poorer countries worsens their conditions. They are given little preventive care or treatments while they are being fully exposed to air pollutants and poor nutrition from rapid industrialization. Lower-income countries have a complicated death rate: 40 percent of deaths due to diseases occur in people younger than 60, compared with 13 percent in developed countries.
The high chronic illness death rates among young populations indicate some potential dangers; this trend could overburden the country and slow its economic growth. The problem of rapid economic growth comes from a different development pattern, courtesy of the European powers, that took more years to prepare and to adapt to the growth. Of course, the industrialization in Europe came at painful costs, but the slower rate of development gave them enough time to create campaigns for the health care system to adjust and ensure people received adequate treatment.
Industrialization often widens the gap between the wealthy and impoverished, a sad logic in capitalism. Only a few actually benefit from the economic gains of the country overall, and the poor majority becomes poorer overtime. Since the countries are still developing, there will be fewer who profit from the growth because the governments are likely to prevent fair distribution of wealth in order to increase profits of the industries. It gets worse as the economy progresses and the currency value correspondingly goes up. Therefore, many poor people cannot afford the rising costs of treatments. The ever-growing gap between the wealthy and the poor contributes to the increase of chronic diseases. While the spending for cures has tripled, the conditions seem to improve little.
I personally think that private interests alone cannot solve this problem. Governments should try to implement more equal access of health care to people regardless of wealth through a public health care system. It has socialist tendencies, and because of that some may frown upon this idea since many believe such policy would hinder capitalistic growth. However, the health problems in these countries are dangerous, and they could worsen their economic legacies as people of working age are unable to function properly. As the campaigns to prevent acute deaths have brought progress, shouldn’t government campaigns to provide better health care be possible as well? Of course, it will be a longer process than the past campaigns for hand washing, but these countries better start to at least consider adopting new health policies in order to continue their economic achievements. ?
What are your thoughts on Hae Rin’s take? Do you agree that there exists a connection between economic progress and the quality of health care available? Do you agree with her solution? We want to know what you think. Please send all comments and feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
