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Community Health Education

Contribution of Community Health to Causes of Death of Young People

The health efforts the community makes can affect the leading causes of death for

adolescents and the adults in many ways. Adolescents aged between ten and fourteen years

have the lowest risk of death compared to other age groups. More than 1.5 million youths

aged between ten and twenty-four years died in 2019, approximately 5,000 daily (Han et al.,

2017). Young people are affected disproportionately by use of substance compared to the

older generation. This is because the youngsters are exposed to risks of developing a

dependency during their life. When they begin using substance at their age, they develop

mental disorders which are not detected and remain untreated then but emerge later in

adulthood (England & Azzopardi-Muscat, 2017). The primary causes of death are violence,

maternal conditions, self-harm, and injuries associated with incidents such as drowning and

road accidents.

Therefore, if the community makes some health efforts, the frequency of these effects

will decrease. Failure to act on these factors can result to in the increase of mortality rate

among the young people and the adolescents. Through community participation and the

enforcement of road safety laws, these untimely demises that result from accidents associated

with driving, cycling, or crossing the roads among the young generations can be reduced. The

public should also campaign and help stop unlicensed juvenile drivers in their area. Youths

who develop mental health problems while serving in the public sector should be given health

attention first and their mental health status examined before assuming to the duties.

Consequently, children should be taught to swim so as to prevent deaths resulting from

drowning.

Violence among the adolescents is another major cause of death. The community is

urged to assist in monitoring and trying to avert such incidences through public forums.
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According to the World Health Organization (WHO) findings, approximately a third of the

deaths of the male adolescents in the middle and low-income countries in the US. This is

caused through violence with mortality rising to about 37% for females and 42% for males

(as cited in Han et al., 2017). Adolescents and young people are also affected by sexual

abuse, sexually transmitted diseases and HIV, risks of injury, reproductive health problems,

mental disorders, early pregnancy, school dropout, and poor class performance (Han et al.,

2017). Other effects of violence among this group include non-communicable and

communicable diseases. The community will, therefore, educate the adolescents so as to save

them from the violence.

Community can respond to violence by promoting early childhood development and

parenting, addressing prevention of bullying in schools, establishing approaches to reduce

firearms and alcohol access, and initiating programs that develop life and social skills.

Offering survivors of violence empathetic care and any other support can help them deal with

the psychological and physical consequences (Han et al., 2017). Illness and disability among

adolescents can also result from depression. The condition is by itself suicidal and a leading

cause of early mortality (Han et al., 2017). Young people who develop mental problems

cannot live fulfilling lives as adults. The society should create programs to help these

youngsters who are addicted to drugs and have developed mental impairment. The initiatives

should be focused to reformation and death rate control among young people. The health care

system will work with the community to ensure proper guidelines on how to attend to young

people who have mental issues are given.

Effects of Changing Demographics of Older Adults on Healthcare Services

Demography is the study of statistics such as income, incidence of disease, deaths,

and births, illustrating the structural change of populations. Older adults’ population growth

will impact medical-care system in relation to demand and supply of caregivers. As a result,
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the provision of these clinicians to medical centers will decrease as they reduce their working

hours or retire. Moreover, increase in the older adult population will take a large share of the

care services, meaning that demand for the healthcare services will increase. The quality of

abilities and healthcare services that the caregivers are expected to deliver will also be

affected by the increase of the ageing population. It is because the experienced staff will

leave and young unexperienced ones will take their positions.

Increase in the number of the elderly will also put pressure on the healthcare facilities

because old people have more health complications, and their frequency of visiting hospitals

for check-up or treatment is higher. This means that more healthcare workers will be needed

to attend to the rising number of the ageing individuals. Therefore, the likelihood of old

people suffering from chronic illness e.g. diabetes, cancer, and heart disease is high and this

means they will require special care. The utilization patterns and needs of the baby boomer

older adults may differ in many ways from those of the current ones. This will also have

effect on the future health-care demands placed in future (Thiede et al., 2017). The aged

populace increase will affect the health-care services in the urban areas more than in the rural

areas.

The above is because they prefer living in the urban areas where both public

transportation and healthcare services are easily accessible. Thus, development and

modification of new care models will be aeffected to serve the increased population of adult

persons. Furthermore, understanding of cultural diversity is an important element in the

nursing care; older clinicians have better view of society variations and how to incorporate

them in to the nursing care. It is, therefore, important to identify opportunities and the

negative effects that may result from increasing older adult populations and put implement

approaches that can be used to respond to these effects in the future.

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References
England, K., & Azzopardi-Muscat, N. (2017). Demographic trends and public health in

Europe. The European Journal of Public Health, 27(suppl_4), 9-13.

https://doi.org/10.109s3/eurpub/ckx159

Han, B. H., Moore, A. A., Sherman, S., Keyes, K. M., & Palamar, J. J. (2017). Demographic

trends of binge alcohol use and alcohol use disorders among older adults in the United

States, 2005–2014. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 170, 198-207.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2016.11.003

Thiede, B. C., Brown, D. L., Sanders, S. R., Glasgow, N., & Kulcsar, L. J. (2017). A

demographic deficit? Local population aging and access to services in rural America,

1990–2010. Rural Sociology, 82(1), 44-74. https://doi.org/10.1111/ruso.12117