Rural Health

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World Health Organization defined health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (WHO n.d). Health status can be measured in a variety of ways. For instance well-being is measured based on self-rated health and self-esteem, health conditions are assessed based on BMI, arthritis, diabetes, CVD, cancer, etc. Human functioning is measured based on disability free life years, activity limitation and finally health status also can be measured by death rates such as infant mortality, life expectancy and mortality from various causes (CIHI, 2010). These measures are helpful to distinguish the health status between different groups and gives direction towards investigating the cause of difference. In a report of Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI, 2006) it is indicated that health status of rural dwellers residing in strong, weak and no MIZ zones is poorer compared with their urban counterparts. The given information is summarized in table 1 (Appendix A). According to this report rural populations have poorer health outcomes in all selected health status measures except one. The only indicator with better outcome in rural settings is incidence of cause-specific cancer. Nevertheless these health outcomes don’t give an explanation of why poorer health status is more observed in rural places. There are abundant studies with sufficient and consistent results implying that health determinants such as income, education, environment and working conditions, social networks, personal health practices and health services lay basis for variety of health conditions including those mentioned in the table 1. In the light of the information on health determinants ... ... middle of paper ... ...im/a05?lang=eng&id=1050491 Stead LF, Lancaster T. Interventions to reduce harm from continued tobacco use. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2007, Issue 3. Art. No.: CD005231. Stead LF, Perera R, Bullen C, Mant D, Lancaster T. Nicotine replacement therapy for smoking cessation. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2008, Issue 1. Art. No.: CD000146. Tanuseputro P, Manuel DG, Leung M, Ngueyen K, Johansen H. (2003). Risk factors for cardiovascular diseases in Canada. Canadian Journal of Cardiology, 19(11): 1249-1260. Vafaei A, Rosenberg MW, Picket W. (2010). Relationships between income inequality and health: a study on rural and urban regions of Canada. Rural and Remote Health (Online), 10(2): 1430. Available: http://www.rrh.org.au World Health Organization. Definition of health. Available from: https://apps.who.int/aboutwho/en/definition.html

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