Health and Aging Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Health and Aging - Essay Example This happens when the size of old retired population widens while the working population shrinks at the same time. Therefore, this puts more burden socially and as well as economically. Almost all countries mainly developed, like Australia, Japan and The United States of America, that have managed to increase their life expectancy rate by effective public health strategies are either presently suffering from this problem or anticipating future concerns over this issue. This change in the population structure has recently became a source for concern and now all the countries are doing whatever they can to deal with this problem as smoothly as possible. According to the Population Division of the United Nations, in 2006 the number of old persons (60 years or older) in the world passed 700 million. And it is estimated that by 2050, 2 billion older persons are expected to be living. According to this estimation, in a span of 50 years, the number of old people in the world will triple in number. The Population Division also gave the increasing rate of the aged people. According to them, the world aged population is increasing at a rate of 2.6 percent per year. When compared with the 1.1 percent increase per year in the total population, this increase of 2.6 is noticeably faster. (UN, 2007) The statistics show that this rapid increase in the number of aged people i... As a person becomes older, naturally he will become relatively unhealthy and would definitely be in need of some sort of medical assistance. In America, the health care costs for the older population have risen dramatically. If steps are not taken right now, then, in future, the standard of living and life expectancy rate will fall greatly. One problem with giving old people health care is that they usually suffer from chronic diseases which are the result of an unhealthy life style. The cost of curing these diseases is very high. Therefore, if these chronic diseases can be avoided, this will not only benefit the person but also the people who were supposed to provide for them. Now the question remains how can these diseases be avoided One way is to maintain a healthy lifestyle in terms of regular exercising, avoiding tobacco and alcohol etc. This includes making people aware of the importance of this. People need to be health literate but the statistics show that older people who need to be health literate are not. The statistics show that 39% of the people of age 75 or above have below basic health literacy. 23% of the people of ages 65 to 74 and 13% of people ages 50 to 64 have below basic health literacy. Therefore making them aware is very necessary. (NIH, 2008) Another way how this can be avoided and reduced is regular medical check ups. These measures would either prevent the people from suffering from these chronic diseases or would help in detecting the diseases when it is not too late. Most countries have not yet realized the importance of this. Only a negligible amount of funds are spent on prevention. The challenge for the society is to give people more