No Poverty
The sustainable development goals were developed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The goals were geared towards ensuring that the quality of life for every individual on the universe is improved (World Health Organization 2015). The goals are 17 in total and the deadline for their achievement is 2030. There are three goals that have a great impact on the area of health care and life sciences. These are the first three goals: No Poverty, Zero Hunger and Good Health and Wellbeing. The goals have either a direct or indirect impact on the sectors. For instance, poverty has an indirect impact by causing people to have inadequate access to health care services. The third one (Good Health and Wellbeing) has a direct impact as it aims at ensuring universal primary healthcare coverage. This paper is going to focus on these three goals. The assignment is going to focus on strategies to achieve the goals and some ways of monitoring progress.
The first goal among the sustainable development goals is that of eradicating poverty in all its forms. Poverty refers to a situation where an individual or a community do not have access to enough resources to cater for their needs. poverty may either be absolute or relative. In most countries of the world, a person is regarded poor if their income is less than half the per capita amount. Governments could ensure reduction of poverty by creating more employment avenues and encouraging self-employment. Consequences of poverty are almost always negative. When it comes to the areas of healthcare and life science, the issue of poverty is significant. To understand the consequences of poverty in these sectors, it would be wise to look at the at the individual, community, national, regional and international levels.
When an individual is poor, they don not have the ability to have an adequate supply of safe and nutritious foods (Lu et al. 2015). They are also likely to be living in poor housing conditions. Such an individual is also prone to using water that is contaminated and unsafe for human consumption. When a person is not able to access an adequate supply of food, they are said to be food insecure (Nilsson, Griggs and Visbeck 2016.). Food insecurity is associated with malnutrition. On the other hand, malnutrition is associated with reduced immunity. This means that such a person is more prone to illnesses. The conditions of poor housing and contaminated water also contribute to the likelihood of ill health. In addition to being at more risk of contracting infections, an individual who is poor has no access to health care services. This is because they do not have the financial access to the care. Such individuals also tend to live in rural areas where clinics are geographically far.
From the individual level, the problem of poverty causes the communities to be at more risk of illnesses. In situations where the issue is widespread, it is observed at the regional and international levels. When it comes to poverty, it is an international issue. This is not only in the developing countries but also in the developed ones. For instance, extensive evidence shows that there is a high rate of child poverty in the United States of America. Poverty is therefore an international issue and should be addressed as such. This probably explains why it is the first goal among the 17 sustainable development goals.
Zero Hunger
Eradication of poverty would greatly help improve health outcomes. With adequate resources, people would have access to appropriate health care services that would help improve the quality of lives (Le 2015). If poverty is eradicated, there would also be increased research in the area of life science industry. Such research would help come with better health care interventions. To monitor the progress in the eradication of poverty, it would be best to measure the ability of individuals in all nations worldwide to have access to food, shelter and healthcare services. Such an assessment would help create a good picture of the situation at a point in time. Tools such as the Household Food Security Questionnaires could be used to collect the appropriate data.
This is the second goal among the 17 sustainable development goals. It is true to say that a nation cannot progress if it is unable to feed its people. Food is the source of energy and nutrients that human beings need for survival. It is sad to note that there is still a significant proportion of the world population that does not have access to safe and nutritious foods. A person is said to be food secure if they have access to adequate and nutritious foods to meet their dietary requirements (Dora et al. 2015). In addition, the food must be safe and the people must have economic and physical access to it at all times. Otherwise, people would be considered food insecure. Food is considered a basic necessity and it is major contributor to health and wellbeing. Hunger could be eliminated through using modern farming methods to increase food security.
In the modern days, food access contributes to health in two three major ways. One, when the access to food is optimal, people are likely to enjoy good health. Secondly, when there is inadequate access to food, people are prone to malnutrition and are at a higher risk of other illnesses, especially the infectious conditions (Buse and Hawkes 2015). Thirdly, is the issue of overnutrition. This has been associated with obesity and chronic diseases of lifestyle. These diseases include diabetes mellitus type 2 and some types of cancer. It follows that the achievement of the goal would have both positive and negative consequences to the health care and life sciences sectors. There are several ways of monitoring the progress being made on the achievement of the goal. Most of these focus on assessing the food security status of households. For instance, the household food security questionnaire. Doing the assessments at certain intervals would help monitor the progress that is being made in the endeavour to eradicate hunger by 2030.
This is the third goal among the 17 sustainable development goals. The goal is directly linked to the sectors of health care and life sciences. The goal aims at ensuring that all people in the world have access to health care services by 2030. The goal mainly focusing on achieving universal primary health care. At the current time, there are huge health disparities (World Bank Group, 2014). There are still many individuals who do not have access to primary health care services (Tangcharoensathien, Mills and Palu, 2015). If people have access to adequate health care services, the life expectancy would significantly increase and people would live better quality lives.
Good Health and Wellbeing
Good health goal could achieve if governments invested in training more health care professionals to meet the needs of the population. Achievement of the goal could be monitored using several ways. Some of these would be assessing the approximate number of people who have access to primary health care services. An assessment could also be done to determine the ratio of health care providers to the number of people in a population (Berwick 2016). This would be a good indicator of access to health care services. Another way to monitor the health care situation would be to monitor the number of health care professionals who are completing studies and being assimilated in to the work force. The poverty index of a population could also tell the situation of health care in a population.
Conclusion
The sustainable development goals refer to a plan made by the United Nations through the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The plan established a total of 17 goals. These goals are aimed at ensuring that the lives of people all over the world are greatly improved by 2030. There are 3 goals that influence the health care and life sciences sectors in a great way. It also happens that they are the first three goals. The goals are No Poverty, Zero Hunger and Good Health and Wellbeing.
The goal of No Poverty aims at eradicating poverty in all its forms and in all places. Poverty significantly affects the health care and life sciences sectors in negative ways. For instance, poor people do not have access to adequate nutrition and access to health services. Measures of food security are a good way of monitoring progress in the achievement of the goal. The goal of zero hunger aims at ensuring that every individual in the universe becomes food secure. Food security is state in which all people have access to adequate and nutritious foods. In addition, the foods must be safe for human consumption. The other goal is that of good health and wellbeing. The aim of the goal is to ensure that all people in the world have access to universal primary health care.
References
Berwick, D.M., 2016. Era 3 for medicine and health care. Jama, 315(13), pp.1329-1330.
Buse, K. and Hawkes, S., 2015. Health in the sustainable development goals: ready for a paradigm shift? Globalization and health, 11(1), p.13.
Dora, C., Haines, A., Balbus, J., Fletcher, E., Adair-Rohani, H., Alabaster, G., Hossain, R., de Onis, M., Branca, F. and Neira, M., 2015. Indicators linking health and sustainability in the post-2015 development agenda. The Lancet, 385(9965), pp.380-391.
Le Blanc, D., 2015. Towards integration at last? The sustainable development goals as a network of targets. Sustainable Development, 23(3), pp.176-187.
Lu, Y., Nakicenovic, N., Visbeck, M. and Stevance, A.S., 2015. Five priorities for the UN sustainable development goals. Nature, 520(7548), pp.432-433.
Nilsson, M., Griggs, D. and Visbeck, M., 2016. Policy: map the interactions between Sustainable Development Goals. Nature News, 534(7607), p.320.
Tangcharoensathien, V., Mills, A. and Palu, T., 2015. Accelerating health equity: the key role of universal health coverage in the Sustainable Development Goals. BMC medicine, 13(1), p.101.
World Bank Group, 2014. World development indicators 2014. World Bank Publications.
World Health Organization, 2015. Health in 2015: from MDGs, millennium development goals to SDGs, sustainable development goals.
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