A disease is an illness that affects the body (a single area or the whole system) and/or mind within a single organism (World Health Organization). Basically when a person is in a diseased state, they are no longer classified by modern and traditional medical diagnosis as “healthy”. Some examples of common diseases worldwide are: Influenza A virus, Asthma, HIV/AIDS, HPV, Malaria, and Sickle Cell Anemia. In addition, diseases are generally classified into three categories, which include: Genetic, infectious, and non-infectious.
As is the case with most marginalized groups, people living with a disease(s) are often discriminated against on the basis of their illness. Some researchers have linked negative cultural perceptions of diseased individuals to the common occurrence of discrimination among the ill. The validity of the previous claim remains to be confirmed, however research has shown that cultural differences between the treatment of the ill within traditional and modern societies do exist.
One way to reduce stigma and discrimination of the ill is through education and improvement of community health services and networks. Yet stigma and discrimination of the ill has existed throughout human history in almost all societies and civilizations around the globe, so eradicating its practice is no easy task.
When some of us think of disease we immediately associate it with death and rarely associate disease with life. Although this may appear to be just a matter of commonsense, having a disease does not automatically mean a death sentence. In fact many people who have suffered from a debilitating illness have accredited their disease to teaching them the true meaning of survival. Disease-related advocacy campaigns around the world have focused on survival as their central theme and message because survival signifies hope not just for a future cure but also for life itself. In the end, whether we are diseased or healthy we are all fighting to survive.
In 2006 the World Heart Federation (WHF) leaped from the dreams of a handful of global youth leaders and partners into a fruitful reality as one of the leading disease advocacy organizations in the world specializing in youth advocacy. With chapters in several nations around the world, WHF has taken their advocacy projects from national to local levels of change. Some of their project areas include: Tobacco control, developing advocacy skills, and poor diets and physical inactivity.
Of course beyond the efforts of global civil society agents, youth have also been impacted negatively by disease as in the case of millions of orphans as a result of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, the hundreds of thousands of children who die each year from Malaria and other preventable diseases, and the growing number of acquired diseases among youth in heavily polluted developed nations. As young people we may not be immune to disease, but we can work to prevent discrimination of the ill and celebrate their survival.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Diseases
A disease is an illness that affects the body (a single area or the whole system) and/or mind within a single organism (World Health Organization). Basically when a person is in a diseased state, they are no longer classified by modern and traditional medical diagnosis as “healthy”. Some examples of common diseases worldwide are: Influenza A virus, Asthma, HIV/AIDS, HPV, Malaria, and Sickle Cell Anemia. In addition, diseases are generally classified into three categories, which include: Genetic, infectious, and non-infectious.
As is the case with most marginalized groups, people living with a disease(s) are often discriminated against on the basis of their illness. Some researchers have linked negative cultural perceptions of diseased individuals to the common occurrence of discrimination among the ill. The validity of the previous claim remains to be confirmed, however research has shown that cultural differences between the treatment of the ill within traditional and modern societies do exist.
One way to reduce stigma and discrimination of the ill is through education and improvement of community health services and networks. Yet stigma and discrimination of the ill has existed throughout human history in almost all societies and civilizations around the globe, so eradicating its practice is no easy task.
When some of us think of disease we immediately associate it with death and rarely associate disease with life. Although this may appear to be just a matter of commonsense, having a disease does not automatically mean a death sentence. In fact many people who have suffered from a debilitating illness have accredited their disease to teaching them the true meaning of survival. Disease-related advocacy campaigns around the world have focused on survival as their central theme and message because survival signifies hope not just for a future cure but also for life itself. In the end, whether we are diseased or healthy we are all fighting to survive.
In 2006 the World Heart Federation (WHF) leaped from the dreams of a handful of global youth leaders and partners into a fruitful reality as one of the leading disease advocacy organizations in the world specializing in youth advocacy. With chapters in several nations around the world, WHF has taken their advocacy projects from national to local levels of change. Some of their project areas include: Tobacco control, developing advocacy skills, and poor diets and physical inactivity.
Of course beyond the efforts of global civil society agents, youth have also been impacted negatively by disease as in the case of millions of orphans as a result of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, the hundreds of thousands of children who die each year from Malaria and other preventable diseases, and the growing number of acquired diseases among youth in heavily polluted developed nations. As young people we may not be immune to disease, but we can work to prevent discrimination of the ill and celebrate their survival.
As is the case with most marginalized groups, people living with a disease(s) are often discriminated against on the basis of their illness. Some researchers have linked negative cultural perceptions of diseased individuals to the common occurrence of discrimination among the ill. The validity of the previous claim remains to be confirmed, however research has shown that cultural differences between the treatment of the ill within traditional and modern societies do exist.
One way to reduce stigma and discrimination of the ill is through education and improvement of community health services and networks. Yet stigma and discrimination of the ill has existed throughout human history in almost all societies and civilizations around the globe, so eradicating its practice is no easy task.
When some of us think of disease we immediately associate it with death and rarely associate disease with life. Although this may appear to be just a matter of commonsense, having a disease does not automatically mean a death sentence. In fact many people who have suffered from a debilitating illness have accredited their disease to teaching them the true meaning of survival. Disease-related advocacy campaigns around the world have focused on survival as their central theme and message because survival signifies hope not just for a future cure but also for life itself. In the end, whether we are diseased or healthy we are all fighting to survive.
In 2006 the World Heart Federation (WHF) leaped from the dreams of a handful of global youth leaders and partners into a fruitful reality as one of the leading disease advocacy organizations in the world specializing in youth advocacy. With chapters in several nations around the world, WHF has taken their advocacy projects from national to local levels of change. Some of their project areas include: Tobacco control, developing advocacy skills, and poor diets and physical inactivity.
Of course beyond the efforts of global civil society agents, youth have also been impacted negatively by disease as in the case of millions of orphans as a result of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, the hundreds of thousands of children who die each year from Malaria and other preventable diseases, and the growing number of acquired diseases among youth in heavily polluted developed nations. As young people we may not be immune to disease, but we can work to prevent discrimination of the ill and celebrate their survival.
Diet & Nutrition
Diet and Nutrition: Healthy and Sustainable Food Practices
Although this term has not been commonly used to describe health in years past, sustainable health is a growing movement. What is sustainable health you might ask? Well let’s break it down. Health can be defined as a state of “soundness of mind,” or more simply, a state of feeling good. The word sustainability describes the process by which something can be maintained or can keep going. Thus, sustainable health describes being in a state where you feel good not just once but over an extended period of time.
Today there are many ways to achieve sustainable health, one of the most popular being through the use and production of organic food products. Globally, organic agriculture has helped improve the biological health of human beings while maintaining the ecological ‘health’ of our environment.
Some of the major areas of interest surrounding sustainable health include: Food additives, animal welfare, biodiversity, community farming, genetic engineering, and pesticides.
As globalization continues to rapidly spread information around the world, youth are increasingly being exposed to unhealthy diets, which include diets that are high in saturated and trans fats and low in fruits, vegetables, and complex carbohydrates. Probably the most unsettling realities of unhealthy eating practices have been increased risk of diseases such as diabetes, heart failure, malnutrition, and obesity. The World Health organization (www.who.int) reported in 2006 that out of the 1.6 billion adults who were diagnosed as overweight, 400 million of those adults were simultaneously diagnosed as obese in both developed and developing countries.
Research studies in the area of health have shown that educating school-aged children and young people on healthy and sustainable nutritional habits, will increase the likelihood of those children and young people remaining healthy in the future regardless of socio-economic background. These educational programs not only teach nutrition, but they also teach youth how to prepare and handle food in safe and sustainable ways, achieve a balanced diet with limited resources, and to decrease their risk of acquiring a nutrition related disease or disorder. The Theory of Planned behaviour has been used by many research studies on nutrition to predict the factors that affect youth decision-making with regards to eating healthy. In a study by Lautenschlager and Smith (2007), researchers found that youth in a multicultural low-income community in the Unites States of America who participated in a 10-week program significantly improved in nutrition and eating habits. The success of the nutrition education program for multicultural youth identified several factors that were important to positively influencing the nutrition choices of young people, which includes: A nutrition and cooking curriculum that emphasized culturally diverse foods; participatory learning activities (role-playing), sustainable gardening lessons, in addition to skills to fight racism and poverty discrimination (care of the Youth Farm and Market Project, http://www.youthfarm.net). TPB model has also been used to help identify the ecological and cultural factors that affect indigenous youth in the Americas.
10 Tips to eating and maintaining sustainable health
1. Add a staple food (i.e. fruit, plantain/banana, maize/corn, rice, bread) to each meal.
2. Focus on foods that are high-fibre and low in saturated and trans fats to keep your heart nice and healthy
3. Drink plenty of water. Avoid drinking tea and coffee until 1-2 hours after a meal (when food will have left the stomach) to ensure the maximum amount of absorption of iron by the body supplied in our foods.
4. If you are a youth, you should include food options that are high in iron (especially young women) such as liver, dark green leaves, fish, red meat, and sorghum.
5. Aim for 3 meals and 3-6 snacks per day to create a healthy balance of all your dietary needs.
6. Avoid sugar-rich, sticky, salty, or processed foods and ingredients that are difficult to digest, inhibit healthy growth, and promote pre-mature aging.
7. Exercise regularly for at least 15 minutes at a time.
8. When you are sick, you can decrease the amount of time you remain sick by covering your mouth when you cough and washing your hands regularly.
9. Get lots of sleep, at least 8 hours of sleep every night, and take naps or siestas throughout the day.
10. Grow, buy, and eat food locally and organically to help your body and the environment.
Micronutrient malnutrition describes the plight of over 2 billion people worldwide (www.who.int) who in most cases do not receive enough foods, and in all cases, do not consume enough nutrients to characterize a healthy and balanced diet. Micronutrient malnutrition has had especially devastating effects for poor pregnant and nursing mothers, whose infants are often born and struggle to live with life-threatening cognitive impairments. Of course other factors besides food consumption play a factor in the persistence of this epidemic, such as: Increased population sizes, people living in poverty, lack of government and foreign aid, and ineffective food policies. The latter (i.e. food policies) has become the focus of many food and health organizations today who see the need for more policies that have in the past neglected to understand “health” in terms of sustainability. Now there is a call for more holistic policies that highlight the interdependent nature of health and sustainable agriculture practices.
Sustainable health is not just a personal choice; it’s a way for you to affect change in your community. Youth just like you are building sustainable food systems in their community just check out “The Food Project (www.thefoodproject.org)” for just one example of youth making a difference in the area of sustainable health.
Although this term has not been commonly used to describe health in years past, sustainable health is a growing movement. What is sustainable health you might ask? Well let’s break it down. Health can be defined as a state of “soundness of mind,” or more simply, a state of feeling good. The word sustainability describes the process by which something can be maintained or can keep going. Thus, sustainable health describes being in a state where you feel good not just once but over an extended period of time.
Today there are many ways to achieve sustainable health, one of the most popular being through the use and production of organic food products. Globally, organic agriculture has helped improve the biological health of human beings while maintaining the ecological ‘health’ of our environment.
Some of the major areas of interest surrounding sustainable health include: Food additives, animal welfare, biodiversity, community farming, genetic engineering, and pesticides.
As globalization continues to rapidly spread information around the world, youth are increasingly being exposed to unhealthy diets, which include diets that are high in saturated and trans fats and low in fruits, vegetables, and complex carbohydrates. Probably the most unsettling realities of unhealthy eating practices have been increased risk of diseases such as diabetes, heart failure, malnutrition, and obesity. The World Health organization (www.who.int) reported in 2006 that out of the 1.6 billion adults who were diagnosed as overweight, 400 million of those adults were simultaneously diagnosed as obese in both developed and developing countries.
Research studies in the area of health have shown that educating school-aged children and young people on healthy and sustainable nutritional habits, will increase the likelihood of those children and young people remaining healthy in the future regardless of socio-economic background. These educational programs not only teach nutrition, but they also teach youth how to prepare and handle food in safe and sustainable ways, achieve a balanced diet with limited resources, and to decrease their risk of acquiring a nutrition related disease or disorder. The Theory of Planned behaviour has been used by many research studies on nutrition to predict the factors that affect youth decision-making with regards to eating healthy. In a study by Lautenschlager and Smith (2007), researchers found that youth in a multicultural low-income community in the Unites States of America who participated in a 10-week program significantly improved in nutrition and eating habits. The success of the nutrition education program for multicultural youth identified several factors that were important to positively influencing the nutrition choices of young people, which includes: A nutrition and cooking curriculum that emphasized culturally diverse foods; participatory learning activities (role-playing), sustainable gardening lessons, in addition to skills to fight racism and poverty discrimination (care of the Youth Farm and Market Project, http://www.youthfarm.net). TPB model has also been used to help identify the ecological and cultural factors that affect indigenous youth in the Americas.
10 Tips to eating and maintaining sustainable health
1. Add a staple food (i.e. fruit, plantain/banana, maize/corn, rice, bread) to each meal.
2. Focus on foods that are high-fibre and low in saturated and trans fats to keep your heart nice and healthy
3. Drink plenty of water. Avoid drinking tea and coffee until 1-2 hours after a meal (when food will have left the stomach) to ensure the maximum amount of absorption of iron by the body supplied in our foods.
4. If you are a youth, you should include food options that are high in iron (especially young women) such as liver, dark green leaves, fish, red meat, and sorghum.
5. Aim for 3 meals and 3-6 snacks per day to create a healthy balance of all your dietary needs.
6. Avoid sugar-rich, sticky, salty, or processed foods and ingredients that are difficult to digest, inhibit healthy growth, and promote pre-mature aging.
7. Exercise regularly for at least 15 minutes at a time.
8. When you are sick, you can decrease the amount of time you remain sick by covering your mouth when you cough and washing your hands regularly.
9. Get lots of sleep, at least 8 hours of sleep every night, and take naps or siestas throughout the day.
10. Grow, buy, and eat food locally and organically to help your body and the environment.
Micronutrient malnutrition describes the plight of over 2 billion people worldwide (www.who.int) who in most cases do not receive enough foods, and in all cases, do not consume enough nutrients to characterize a healthy and balanced diet. Micronutrient malnutrition has had especially devastating effects for poor pregnant and nursing mothers, whose infants are often born and struggle to live with life-threatening cognitive impairments. Of course other factors besides food consumption play a factor in the persistence of this epidemic, such as: Increased population sizes, people living in poverty, lack of government and foreign aid, and ineffective food policies. The latter (i.e. food policies) has become the focus of many food and health organizations today who see the need for more policies that have in the past neglected to understand “health” in terms of sustainability. Now there is a call for more holistic policies that highlight the interdependent nature of health and sustainable agriculture practices.
Sustainable health is not just a personal choice; it’s a way for you to affect change in your community. Youth just like you are building sustainable food systems in their community just check out “The Food Project (www.thefoodproject.org)” for just one example of youth making a difference in the area of sustainable health.
Diet & Nutrition
Diet and Nutrition: Healthy and Sustainable Food Practices
Although this term has not been commonly used to describe health in years past, sustainable health is a growing movement. What is sustainable health you might ask? Well let’s break it down. Health can be defined as a state of “soundness of mind,” or more simply, a state of feeling good. The word sustainability describes the process by which something can be maintained or can keep going. Thus, sustainable health describes being in a state where you feel good not just once but over an extended period of time.
Today there are many ways to achieve sustainable health, one of the most popular being through the use and production of organic food products. Globally, organic agriculture has helped improve the biological health of human beings while maintaining the ecological ‘health’ of our environment.
Some of the major areas of interest surrounding sustainable health include: Food additives, animal welfare, biodiversity, community farming, genetic engineering, and pesticides.
As globalization continues to rapidly spread information around the world, youth are increasingly being exposed to unhealthy diets, which include diets that are high in saturated and trans fats and low in fruits, vegetables, and complex carbohydrates. Probably the most unsettling realities of unhealthy eating practices have been increased risk of diseases such as diabetes, heart failure, malnutrition, and obesity. The World Health organization (www.who.int) reported in 2006 that out of the 1.6 billion adults who were diagnosed as overweight, 400 million of those adults were simultaneously diagnosed as obese in both developed and developing countries.
Research studies in the area of health have shown that educating school-aged children and young people on healthy and sustainable nutritional habits, will increase the likelihood of those children and young people remaining healthy in the future regardless of socio-economic background. These educational programs not only teach nutrition, but they also teach youth how to prepare and handle food in safe and sustainable ways, achieve a balanced diet with limited resources, and to decrease their risk of acquiring a nutrition related disease or disorder. The Theory of Planned behaviour has been used by many research studies on nutrition to predict the factors that affect youth decision-making with regards to eating healthy. In a study by Lautenschlager and Smith (2007), researchers found that youth in a multicultural low-income community in the Unites States of America who participated in a 10-week program significantly improved in nutrition and eating habits. The success of the nutrition education program for multicultural youth identified several factors that were important to positively influencing the nutrition choices of young people, which includes: A nutrition and cooking curriculum that emphasized culturally diverse foods; participatory learning activities (role-playing), sustainable gardening lessons, in addition to skills to fight racism and poverty discrimination (care of the Youth Farm and Market Project, http://www.youthfarm.net). TPB model has also been used to help identify the ecological and cultural factors that affect indigenous youth in the Americas.
10 Tips to eating and maintaining sustainable health
1. Add a staple food (i.e. fruit, plantain/banana, maize/corn, rice, bread) to each meal.
2. Focus on foods that are high-fibre and low in saturated and trans fats to keep your heart nice and healthy
3. Drink plenty of water. Avoid drinking tea and coffee until 1-2 hours after a meal (when food will have left the stomach) to ensure the maximum amount of absorption of iron by the body supplied in our foods.
4. If you are a youth, you should include food options that are high in iron (especially young women) such as liver, dark green leaves, fish, red meat, and sorghum.
5. Aim for 3 meals and 3-6 snacks per day to create a healthy balance of all your dietary needs.
6. Avoid sugar-rich, sticky, salty, or processed foods and ingredients that are difficult to digest, inhibit healthy growth, and promote pre-mature aging.
7. Exercise regularly for at least 15 minutes at a time.
8. When you are sick, you can decrease the amount of time you remain sick by covering your mouth when you cough and washing your hands regularly.
9. Get lots of sleep, at least 8 hours of sleep every night, and take naps or siestas throughout the day.
10. Grow, buy, and eat food locally and organically to help your body and the environment.
Micronutrient malnutrition describes the plight of over 2 billion people worldwide (www.who.int) who in most cases do not receive enough foods, and in all cases, do not consume enough nutrients to characterize a healthy and balanced diet. Micronutrient malnutrition has had especially devastating effects for poor pregnant and nursing mothers, whose infants are often born and struggle to live with life-threatening cognitive impairments. Of course other factors besides food consumption play a factor in the persistence of this epidemic, such as: Increased population sizes, people living in poverty, lack of government and foreign aid, and ineffective food policies. The latter (i.e. food policies) has become the focus of many food and health organizations today who see the need for more policies that have in the past neglected to understand “health” in terms of sustainability. Now there is a call for more holistic policies that highlight the interdependent nature of health and sustainable agriculture practices.
Sustainable health is not just a personal choice; it’s a way for you to affect change in your community. Youth just like you are building sustainable food systems in their community just check out “The Food Project (www.thefoodproject.org)” for just one example of youth making a difference in the area of sustainable health.
Although this term has not been commonly used to describe health in years past, sustainable health is a growing movement. What is sustainable health you might ask? Well let’s break it down. Health can be defined as a state of “soundness of mind,” or more simply, a state of feeling good. The word sustainability describes the process by which something can be maintained or can keep going. Thus, sustainable health describes being in a state where you feel good not just once but over an extended period of time.
Today there are many ways to achieve sustainable health, one of the most popular being through the use and production of organic food products. Globally, organic agriculture has helped improve the biological health of human beings while maintaining the ecological ‘health’ of our environment.
Some of the major areas of interest surrounding sustainable health include: Food additives, animal welfare, biodiversity, community farming, genetic engineering, and pesticides.
As globalization continues to rapidly spread information around the world, youth are increasingly being exposed to unhealthy diets, which include diets that are high in saturated and trans fats and low in fruits, vegetables, and complex carbohydrates. Probably the most unsettling realities of unhealthy eating practices have been increased risk of diseases such as diabetes, heart failure, malnutrition, and obesity. The World Health organization (www.who.int) reported in 2006 that out of the 1.6 billion adults who were diagnosed as overweight, 400 million of those adults were simultaneously diagnosed as obese in both developed and developing countries.
Research studies in the area of health have shown that educating school-aged children and young people on healthy and sustainable nutritional habits, will increase the likelihood of those children and young people remaining healthy in the future regardless of socio-economic background. These educational programs not only teach nutrition, but they also teach youth how to prepare and handle food in safe and sustainable ways, achieve a balanced diet with limited resources, and to decrease their risk of acquiring a nutrition related disease or disorder. The Theory of Planned behaviour has been used by many research studies on nutrition to predict the factors that affect youth decision-making with regards to eating healthy. In a study by Lautenschlager and Smith (2007), researchers found that youth in a multicultural low-income community in the Unites States of America who participated in a 10-week program significantly improved in nutrition and eating habits. The success of the nutrition education program for multicultural youth identified several factors that were important to positively influencing the nutrition choices of young people, which includes: A nutrition and cooking curriculum that emphasized culturally diverse foods; participatory learning activities (role-playing), sustainable gardening lessons, in addition to skills to fight racism and poverty discrimination (care of the Youth Farm and Market Project, http://www.youthfarm.net). TPB model has also been used to help identify the ecological and cultural factors that affect indigenous youth in the Americas.
10 Tips to eating and maintaining sustainable health
1. Add a staple food (i.e. fruit, plantain/banana, maize/corn, rice, bread) to each meal.
2. Focus on foods that are high-fibre and low in saturated and trans fats to keep your heart nice and healthy
3. Drink plenty of water. Avoid drinking tea and coffee until 1-2 hours after a meal (when food will have left the stomach) to ensure the maximum amount of absorption of iron by the body supplied in our foods.
4. If you are a youth, you should include food options that are high in iron (especially young women) such as liver, dark green leaves, fish, red meat, and sorghum.
5. Aim for 3 meals and 3-6 snacks per day to create a healthy balance of all your dietary needs.
6. Avoid sugar-rich, sticky, salty, or processed foods and ingredients that are difficult to digest, inhibit healthy growth, and promote pre-mature aging.
7. Exercise regularly for at least 15 minutes at a time.
8. When you are sick, you can decrease the amount of time you remain sick by covering your mouth when you cough and washing your hands regularly.
9. Get lots of sleep, at least 8 hours of sleep every night, and take naps or siestas throughout the day.
10. Grow, buy, and eat food locally and organically to help your body and the environment.
Micronutrient malnutrition describes the plight of over 2 billion people worldwide (www.who.int) who in most cases do not receive enough foods, and in all cases, do not consume enough nutrients to characterize a healthy and balanced diet. Micronutrient malnutrition has had especially devastating effects for poor pregnant and nursing mothers, whose infants are often born and struggle to live with life-threatening cognitive impairments. Of course other factors besides food consumption play a factor in the persistence of this epidemic, such as: Increased population sizes, people living in poverty, lack of government and foreign aid, and ineffective food policies. The latter (i.e. food policies) has become the focus of many food and health organizations today who see the need for more policies that have in the past neglected to understand “health” in terms of sustainability. Now there is a call for more holistic policies that highlight the interdependent nature of health and sustainable agriculture practices.
Sustainable health is not just a personal choice; it’s a way for you to affect change in your community. Youth just like you are building sustainable food systems in their community just check out “The Food Project (www.thefoodproject.org)” for just one example of youth making a difference in the area of sustainable health.
HIV/AIDS
“When the history of our times is written, will we be remembered as the generation that turned our backs in a moment of a global crisis or will it be recorded that we did the right thing?” - Nelson Mandela
HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus. This virus is transferred from person to person when an HIV positive individual’s blood, semen, vaginal fluids, or breast milk comes in contact with another person’s bloodstream (through the mouth, throat, or breaks in the skin). This viral infection usually occurs during unprotected sexual activity, but can also occur between an HIV/AIDS positive mother and her child, through an unsecure blood transfusion, and by sharing used needles.
Once infected it takes as long as 8 to 10 years for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus to effectively breakdown the bodies’ natural immune defences, which leads to the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or AIDS for short. Although scientists around the world have been working hard to obtain a cure or even a vaccine for the HIV, none are currently available.
According to the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (2007), about 33.2 million people are infected with HIV worldwide (which is 16% lower than 2006 estimates. So, far 2.1 million people have lost their lives to AIDS. Youth are particularly at risk as young people between the ages of 15 to 24 account for more than 40% of new HIV infections. Young women are also more at risk for contracting HIV; three times more likely than males in Sub-Saharan Africa and almost two times more likely in the Caribbean.
The most devastating effect on the world’s youth, as a result of the spread of the HIV/AIDS virus around the world, has been the alarming increase in the number of children and young people who have been orphaned by the disease. In 2007, there was an estimated 11.4 million AIDS orphans in sub-Saharan Africa.
The new face of HIV/AIDS is undoubtedly global leadership or more importantly youth leadership and education. Youth leaders are raising their voices on the issue of HIV/AIDS all over the world while spreading a message of change and healing among their young peers. For example groups such as “The Young Women of Color Leadership Council” who are striving to educate at-risk youth of color on issues of HIV prevention and community leadership; “Youth Visioning” who aim to encourage and support young leaders living on small islands around the world to propose and implement projects that will effectively impact how youth experience and understand HIV/AIDS; and the “Rural Sensitization Campaign in Cameroon” who is actively challenging youth to learn and be trained on healthy sexual practices, HIV prevention and transmission, testing, and treatment, in addition to targeting young women and men, this campaign aims to involve parents and children HIV/AIDS educational programmes.
There are several other factors that contribute to the spread of HIV/AIDS and the marginalization of people living with HIV/AIDS, which include high levels of: Severe poverty, unemployment, inadequate medical care, and risky sexual activity. However an additional factor that often goes unnoticed is the presence of stigma that becomes associated to people living with aids (PLWA) and who have openly revealed their HIV/AIDS status in their community. Stigma may result in isolation, physical and verbal abuse, and even in the premature death of PLWA. The spread of stigma among PLWA is preventable, but it requires the community and grassroots organizations to work together to minimize the fear and the overemphasis on the problems associated to HIV/AIDS when spreading awareness about the disease.
HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus. This virus is transferred from person to person when an HIV positive individual’s blood, semen, vaginal fluids, or breast milk comes in contact with another person’s bloodstream (through the mouth, throat, or breaks in the skin). This viral infection usually occurs during unprotected sexual activity, but can also occur between an HIV/AIDS positive mother and her child, through an unsecure blood transfusion, and by sharing used needles.
Once infected it takes as long as 8 to 10 years for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus to effectively breakdown the bodies’ natural immune defences, which leads to the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or AIDS for short. Although scientists around the world have been working hard to obtain a cure or even a vaccine for the HIV, none are currently available.
According to the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (2007), about 33.2 million people are infected with HIV worldwide (which is 16% lower than 2006 estimates. So, far 2.1 million people have lost their lives to AIDS. Youth are particularly at risk as young people between the ages of 15 to 24 account for more than 40% of new HIV infections. Young women are also more at risk for contracting HIV; three times more likely than males in Sub-Saharan Africa and almost two times more likely in the Caribbean.
The most devastating effect on the world’s youth, as a result of the spread of the HIV/AIDS virus around the world, has been the alarming increase in the number of children and young people who have been orphaned by the disease. In 2007, there was an estimated 11.4 million AIDS orphans in sub-Saharan Africa.
The new face of HIV/AIDS is undoubtedly global leadership or more importantly youth leadership and education. Youth leaders are raising their voices on the issue of HIV/AIDS all over the world while spreading a message of change and healing among their young peers. For example groups such as “The Young Women of Color Leadership Council” who are striving to educate at-risk youth of color on issues of HIV prevention and community leadership; “Youth Visioning” who aim to encourage and support young leaders living on small islands around the world to propose and implement projects that will effectively impact how youth experience and understand HIV/AIDS; and the “Rural Sensitization Campaign in Cameroon” who is actively challenging youth to learn and be trained on healthy sexual practices, HIV prevention and transmission, testing, and treatment, in addition to targeting young women and men, this campaign aims to involve parents and children HIV/AIDS educational programmes.
There are several other factors that contribute to the spread of HIV/AIDS and the marginalization of people living with HIV/AIDS, which include high levels of: Severe poverty, unemployment, inadequate medical care, and risky sexual activity. However an additional factor that often goes unnoticed is the presence of stigma that becomes associated to people living with aids (PLWA) and who have openly revealed their HIV/AIDS status in their community. Stigma may result in isolation, physical and verbal abuse, and even in the premature death of PLWA. The spread of stigma among PLWA is preventable, but it requires the community and grassroots organizations to work together to minimize the fear and the overemphasis on the problems associated to HIV/AIDS when spreading awareness about the disease.
HIV/AIDS
“When the history of our times is written, will we be remembered as the generation that turned our backs in a moment of a global crisis or will it be recorded that we did the right thing?” - Nelson Mandela
HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus. This virus is transferred from person to person when an HIV positive individual’s blood, semen, vaginal fluids, or breast milk comes in contact with another person’s bloodstream (through the mouth, throat, or breaks in the skin). This viral infection usually occurs during unprotected sexual activity, but can also occur between an HIV/AIDS positive mother and her child, through an unsecure blood transfusion, and by sharing used needles.
Once infected it takes as long as 8 to 10 years for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus to effectively breakdown the bodies’ natural immune defences, which leads to the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or AIDS for short. Although scientists around the world have been working hard to obtain a cure or even a vaccine for the HIV, none are currently available.
According to the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (2007), about 33.2 million people are infected with HIV worldwide (which is 16% lower than 2006 estimates. So, far 2.1 million people have lost their lives to AIDS. Youth are particularly at risk as young people between the ages of 15 to 24 account for more than 40% of new HIV infections. Young women are also more at risk for contracting HIV; three times more likely than males in Sub-Saharan Africa and almost two times more likely in the Caribbean.
The most devastating effect on the world’s youth, as a result of the spread of the HIV/AIDS virus around the world, has been the alarming increase in the number of children and young people who have been orphaned by the disease. In 2007, there was an estimated 11.4 million AIDS orphans in sub-Saharan Africa.
The new face of HIV/AIDS is undoubtedly global leadership or more importantly youth leadership and education. Youth leaders are raising their voices on the issue of HIV/AIDS all over the world while spreading a message of change and healing among their young peers. For example groups such as “The Young Women of Color Leadership Council” who are striving to educate at-risk youth of color on issues of HIV prevention and community leadership; “Youth Visioning” who aim to encourage and support young leaders living on small islands around the world to propose and implement projects that will effectively impact how youth experience and understand HIV/AIDS; and the “Rural Sensitization Campaign in Cameroon” who is actively challenging youth to learn and be trained on healthy sexual practices, HIV prevention and transmission, testing, and treatment, in addition to targeting young women and men, this campaign aims to involve parents and children HIV/AIDS educational programmes.
There are several other factors that contribute to the spread of HIV/AIDS and the marginalization of people living with HIV/AIDS, which include high levels of: Severe poverty, unemployment, inadequate medical care, and risky sexual activity. However an additional factor that often goes unnoticed is the presence of stigma that becomes associated to people living with aids (PLWA) and who have openly revealed their HIV/AIDS status in their community. Stigma may result in isolation, physical and verbal abuse, and even in the premature death of PLWA. The spread of stigma among PLWA is preventable, but it requires the community and grassroots organizations to work together to minimize the fear and the overemphasis on the problems associated to HIV/AIDS when spreading awareness about the disease.
HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus. This virus is transferred from person to person when an HIV positive individual’s blood, semen, vaginal fluids, or breast milk comes in contact with another person’s bloodstream (through the mouth, throat, or breaks in the skin). This viral infection usually occurs during unprotected sexual activity, but can also occur between an HIV/AIDS positive mother and her child, through an unsecure blood transfusion, and by sharing used needles.
Once infected it takes as long as 8 to 10 years for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus to effectively breakdown the bodies’ natural immune defences, which leads to the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or AIDS for short. Although scientists around the world have been working hard to obtain a cure or even a vaccine for the HIV, none are currently available.
According to the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (2007), about 33.2 million people are infected with HIV worldwide (which is 16% lower than 2006 estimates. So, far 2.1 million people have lost their lives to AIDS. Youth are particularly at risk as young people between the ages of 15 to 24 account for more than 40% of new HIV infections. Young women are also more at risk for contracting HIV; three times more likely than males in Sub-Saharan Africa and almost two times more likely in the Caribbean.
The most devastating effect on the world’s youth, as a result of the spread of the HIV/AIDS virus around the world, has been the alarming increase in the number of children and young people who have been orphaned by the disease. In 2007, there was an estimated 11.4 million AIDS orphans in sub-Saharan Africa.
The new face of HIV/AIDS is undoubtedly global leadership or more importantly youth leadership and education. Youth leaders are raising their voices on the issue of HIV/AIDS all over the world while spreading a message of change and healing among their young peers. For example groups such as “The Young Women of Color Leadership Council” who are striving to educate at-risk youth of color on issues of HIV prevention and community leadership; “Youth Visioning” who aim to encourage and support young leaders living on small islands around the world to propose and implement projects that will effectively impact how youth experience and understand HIV/AIDS; and the “Rural Sensitization Campaign in Cameroon” who is actively challenging youth to learn and be trained on healthy sexual practices, HIV prevention and transmission, testing, and treatment, in addition to targeting young women and men, this campaign aims to involve parents and children HIV/AIDS educational programmes.
There are several other factors that contribute to the spread of HIV/AIDS and the marginalization of people living with HIV/AIDS, which include high levels of: Severe poverty, unemployment, inadequate medical care, and risky sexual activity. However an additional factor that often goes unnoticed is the presence of stigma that becomes associated to people living with aids (PLWA) and who have openly revealed their HIV/AIDS status in their community. Stigma may result in isolation, physical and verbal abuse, and even in the premature death of PLWA. The spread of stigma among PLWA is preventable, but it requires the community and grassroots organizations to work together to minimize the fear and the overemphasis on the problems associated to HIV/AIDS when spreading awareness about the disease.
New Guidelines for Treating Heart Failure
- THURSDAY, March 26 (HealthDay News) — New guidelines for treatment of heart failure are being issued by the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology, with a strong emphasis on management of people hospitalized for the condition and also on the treatment of blacks.
“The most important change is the addition of a new section on hospitalized patients,” said Dr. Mariell Jessup, professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and chairwoman of the guidelines writing group. “It’s unusual to have a completely new section, but it is increasingly recognized that hospitalization for heart failure contributes substantially to morbidity and mortality and to health-care costs.”
About 5.7 million Americans have heart failure, the progressive loss of ability to pump blood, and 1.1 million people are hospitalized because of it each year. Heart failure management will cost the U.S. health-care system more than $37 billion this year, the guidelines group estimated.
Guidelines are assessed periodically to determine whether results of new trials or studies require changes, Jessup said. “We found that enough has happened for the guidelines to be changed,” she said. “The most important studies were on hospitalized patients, so we felt there was a gap we had to fill.”
The guidelines are being published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and in the Heart Association journal Circulation
The new guidelines “outline what has to happen in the initial evaluation, such as measurement of ejection fraction and whether the patient has coronary disease or not,” Jessup said. “They describe what should be done each day to assess the patient and the need to think carefully about which drugs should be given and why.”
Drug assessment includes “the role of cardioactive drugs including nitroglycerine,” Jessup said. “The guidelines also stress the role of evidence-based medicine and also what should be considered in the discharge of a patient from the hospital.”
Special consideration is given to blacks, she said, because “heart failure has a different etiology [cause] and tends to occur younger” in blacks than in others. The guidelines stress the use of two drugs, hydralazine and isosorbide dinitrate, in blacks. Both relieve pressure on the heart by relaxing blood vessels.
“A trial showed that using them in a fixed-dose combination produced a remarkable reduction in mortality in African-Americans, and we really wanted to strengthen the recommendations that they should be used in African-Americans,” Jessup said.
The drugs are effective, because heart failure in blacks has been shown to be more related to high blood pressure than it is in whites, she said. “Also, African-Americans with heart failure don’t seem to have as much coronary disease,” or blockage of the heart arteries, Jessup said.
One revised section of the guidelines contains simplified advice on implantable cardioverter defibrillators, which can prevent sudden cardiac death by delivering a shock to restore normal heart rhythm when the heart suddenly beats irregularly. Various guidelines on the use of these devices have been issued, Jessup said, “and we are trying to simplify what we have said about them,” Jessup said.
Also revised is the guideline section on treatment of people who have both heart failure and the arrhythmia called atrial fibrillation.
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