Global Health Updates. Issue 6
Global Health Update 6
Weekly updates
Issue 6 ?Vol2. 03-08/01/22
Content
Abstract
Racism is a Public Health Crisis (What about Casteism?)
Who will set Global Health Agenda?
Ultra-processed Food is Not Food. Label Accordingly
Reducing the burden of Stroke, A?Public Health Response
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Abstract
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Racism is identified as a public health crisis. But what about casteism and its impact on public health? The New York State Senate (S2987A) Declares racism a public health crisis and establishes a working group within the health department to promote racial equity throughout the state and address issues related to racism as a public health crisis.
'Power and equity are key to Global Health.' Those Individuals, institutions and agencies based in the USA and Europe have been driving the global health agenda for too long. It is time for a change
The Ultra-processed Food is not food, and it should be labelled accordingly.
Stroke is the second leading cause of preventable death and the third leading cause of disability worldwide. Moreover, the public health burden of Stroke is increasing rapidly in low-income and middle-income countries, many of which cannot face the social and economic challenges it imposes.
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Racism is a public health crisis (What about casteism?)
?The New York State Senate (S2987A) Declares racism a public health crisis and establishes a working group within the health department to promote racial equity throughout the state and address issues related to racism as a public health crisis.
It seems a similar social category of social exclusion?Casteism and its effect on public health need renewed attention. That racism poses a threat to the health, safety, and quality of life of as many as forty-seven million?Americans, and that racism negatively impacts and exacerbates health inequities among historically marginalised communities. The legislature further finds and declares that racism contributes to a national disparity between black and white infant mortality rates, and that racism contributes to inequalities in housing,?education,?and employment,?and that racism negatively impacts the lives of people of colour in New York.
?The legislature further finds that race is a?social construct not rooted in meaningful biological differences, and this system unfairly disadvantages specific individuals and communities while giving advantages to other individuals and communities.??The legislature further finds and declares that the impact of racism on public health deserves action from all levels of government.
?Therefore,?this legislation establishes a working group to address issues related to racism and ensure the health and safety of the state's citizens. Therefore,?the Senate established a working group within the department of health to be known as the "racial equity working group". The working group shall study issues related to racism as a?public health crisis and develop recommendations for legislative or other actions that can be undertaken to reduce or eliminate racial and ethnic disparities.
Assembly Bill A5679A SIGNED BY GOVERNOR 2021-2022 Legislative Session. https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2021/S2987
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Kumar A. Five years from now, who will be setting the global health agenda? BMJ Global Health 2021;6:e008045. doi:10.1136/?bmjgh-2021-008045
?'Power and equity are key to Global Health.' Those Individuals, institutions and agencies based in the USA and Europe have been driving the global health agenda for too long. It is time for a change, wrote Mr Kumar, the CEO of??IPAS, an international reproductive justice organisation with offices in 16 countries in Asia, Africa and the Americas, working to ensure that abortion and contraception are accessible to all. They were transforming from a traditional 'hub and spoke' organisation with power centred in the USA to a 'networked' organisation with authority, power, and leadership dispersed and shared across the countries where they work.
To decolonise public health, they shift power across the organisation rather than holding it in a central body and redistributing resources—human and financial—toward the countries and people closest to their work and Fostering ownership and autonomy for all involved. https://gh.bmj.com/content/6/12/e008045
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?The Ultra-processed Food is not food, and it should be labelled accordingly. A new food classification, NOVA, was developed by Monteiro and colleagues, which assigns foodstuffs according to the extent and purpose of industrial processing. Three main groups are defined: 1) Unprocessed or minimally processed foods (group 1), 2. Processed culinary and food industry ingredients (group 2), and 3. ultra-processed food products (group 3)
The food products in group three have several ingredients from group two and unprocessed or minimally processed essential foods from group one. The processes used in the production of group three include additional salt, high level of sugar,?baking,?frying,?deep-frying,?curing,?smoking,?pickling,?canning, and also frequently the use of preservatives and cosmetic additives, the addition of synthetic vitamins and minerals, and sophisticated types of packaging.
'The ultra-processed food creates durable, accessible, convenient, attractive, ready-to-eat or heat products. Most of them are often termed "fast" foods or convenience foods. They are formulated to reduce microbial deterioration ("long shelf life"), transportable for long distances, highly palatable, and often addictive.' (Monteiro et al., 2019)
Ultra-processed food often lacks nutritional value, including unhealthy added sugar, sodium, and trans fat levels. These ingredients make the food taste better but may lead to obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. https://gh.bmj.com/content/6/12/e007240
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Stroke is the second leading cause of preventable death and the third leading cause of disability worldwide. The public health burden of Stroke is increasing rapidly in low-income and middle-income countries, many of which are unable to face the social and economic ?challenges it imposes ?(Owolabi et al., 2022)
Owolabi and colleagues offered a set of pragmatic solutions for the implementation of primary stroke prevention, emphasising the role of governments and population-wide strategies, including task-shifting and sharing and health system re-engineering. Implementation of primary stroke prevention involves patients, health professionals, funders, policymakers, implementation partners, and the entire population along the life course. Therefore, effective stroke prevention should include population-wide and individual-based strategies that cover all, or most, of the population, prioritising population-wide strategies. Individual-based primary stroke prevention strategies can be best accomplished with mobile phone technology (so-called motivational mass individual strategy for stroke prevention).
Population-wide strategies for primary Stroke and cardiovascular disease prevention are well established (e.g., nationwide measures to reduce exposure to smoking and vaping; reduce intake of sugary drinks, salt, and alcohol; and promote adequate physical activity). These population-wide strategies are recommended in several international and WHO guidelines,?but their implementation is unacceptably slow and far from universal. There are two main reasons for the slow implementation of population-wide strategies. First, such strategies require policy and legislative changes often not supported by significant industries (e.g., salt reduction in processed food and reduction of exposure to smoking, alcohol, and fast food). There is also evidence of the double burden of low income and an unhealthy neighbourhood food environment on objective measures of adiposity and its contribution to social inequalities in health. Governments should be responsible for and seek strategies to reduce the exposure of their citizens to unhealthy food ?(Owolabi et al. 2022)?https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(21)00230-9/fulltext
??References
Kumar A. Five years from now, who will be setting the global health agenda? BMJ Global Health (2021);6:e008045. doi:10.1136/?bmjgh-2021-008045
Monteiro, C.A., Cannon, G., Lawrence, M., Costa Louzada, M.L. and Pereira Machado, P. (2019). Ultra-processed foods, diet quality, and health using the NOVA classification system. Rome, FAO.
Monteiro CA, Levy RB, Claro RM, Castro IR, Cannon G. A ??(2010) New classification of foods based on the extent and purpose of their processing. Cad Saude Publica. 2010 Nov;26(11):2039-49. DOI: 10.1590/s0102-311x2010001100005. PMID: 21180977.
Cotter T, Kotov A, Wang S, et al. 'Warning: ultra-processed — A call for warnings on foods that are not really foods. BMJ Global Health 2021;6:e007240. doi:10.1136/?bmjgh-2021-007240
Mayowa O Owolabi*, Amanda G Thrift, Ajay Mahal, Marie Ishida, Sheila Martins, Walter D Johnson, Jeyaraj Pandian, Foad Abd-Allah, Joseph Yaria, Hoang T Phan, Greg Roth, Seana L Gall, Richard Beare, Thanh G Phan, Robert Mikulik, Rufus O Akinyemi, Bo Norrving, Michael Brainin, Valery L Feigin*, on behalf of the Stroke Experts Collaboration.??Primary stroke prevention worldwide: translating evidence into action. Group??www.thelancet.com/public-health Vol 7 January 2022. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(21)00230-9/fulltext
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Academics
2 年I think, political affiliation is becoming more dangerous than race, in Indian context.
Executive Director at Harshal Foundation
2 年Similar to racism, caste could be considered as a public health crises. In India, caste is a social contract that divide citizen in different caste groups on the basis of birth. Incidentally, socio-economic differences in different caste groups are huge and in spite of constitutional provisions could not be bridged during 75 years following independence of country. Importantly, the inter-relationship between caste and access to public health, usage of public health , deprivation of public have not yet been analysed and understood. Thanks to New York legislators for taking the racism issue. We could look at caste from Indian perspective.