Friday, February 24, 2012

Blog #6 Urbanization is increasing the risk of Heart Disease in children


It is reported that children now have an increased risk of contracting cardiovascular diseases due to urbanization. The physical growth of urban areas due to the result of global changes help to define what exactly urbanization is. The conditions of an urbanized area unfortunately make it easier for diseases to thrive within. Initially the risk of cardiovascular diseases was thought to only affect adults, but as research has progressed it turns out that children, if anything, are actually even more susceptible than adults. Due to this misconception more prosperous communities have not really done anything to try to help prevent the spread of the diseases. This is another one of those instances where a population is unaware of the potential health risks until someone is actually affected within that particular society. Some of the factors listed in the article that contribute to the spread of cardiovascular diseases included crowded living conditions, water pollution and a large display of drugs and alcohol. Not surprisingly these conditions are more prevalent in urbanized areas in comparison to rural ones. In an effort to try to prevent the future spread of CVD and protect the future generations, awareness is being raised globally to tackle the issue. For example, The World Congress of Cardiology will take place in Dubai in April and they will use that as an opportunity to draw attention to the issue in this particular area. Because almost half of the world’s population lives in urban areas this global issue is not one that will disappear overnight.  If every region could use this model and at important events take advantage of the opportunity to raise awareness to the issue, I believe a boost in progress would drastically occur. I also believe that it would make more of an impact if people are aware of the potential risks before they occur so they are able to work in an effort to try to prevent them instead of waiting for them to occur to act on the situation.




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