Diabetes- Population health problem in Australia
Discuss about the Advocacy Strategy and Diabetes.
For our bodies to perform their duties effectively, we need energy to function. This energy is obtained from the food we eat by converting sugar into energy. Insulin hormone is responsible for carrying out this conversion process (Vinicor, 2014). Therefore, people with diabetes have a malfunction pancreas that does not produce insulin or produce insufficient insulin amount.
The problem of diabetes has now reached a critical level and continues to worsen. Every seven seconds someone in the world dies from diabetes, which means that four million people die annually (Vinicor, 2014). In 2014, 366 million people suffered from diabetes, another 280 million were at a high risk of developing diabetes. If urgent measures are not taken, in 20 years the number of people with diabetes will increase to 552 million, and at risk will include nearly 398 million (Australia’s health, 2015).
Diabetes is a major cause of heart disease and strokes. It is one of the ten leading causes of disability worldwide (Schieppati & Remuzzi, 2015). Undiagnosed or decompensated diabetes can lead to lower limb amputations, blindness, and kidney disease. Diabetes also aggravates serious infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV / AIDS, and malaria. The risk of tuberculosis in an infected person with diabetes is three times higher. Diabetes is often accompanied by malaria in areas where malaria is endemic. In these cases, treatment is very difficult and the possibility of death increases. HIV / AIDS, as well as some of the antiretroviral drugs used to treat HIV / AIDS increases the risk of developing diabetes (Diabetes, 2016).
The prevalence of diabetes has tripled between 2014 and 2015 with an increase of 1.5% to 4.8%. According to the 2015 reported data by AIHW, it shows that diabetes is higher in men by 7% than women, which is at 5 %. Prevalence of diabetes increases at old age between 64 – 75 years and the rates are lower between the ages of 44 – 55 (Australia’s health, 2015).
In terms of medicine, diabetes is a disease that occurs when the blood sugar is high. Blood sugar is the main source of energy to the body and comes from the food we consume. Having a lot of glucose in the blood causes health problems. Diabetes has no cure but there are steps to be undertaken in order to manage diabetes and stay a healthy life.
Framing of the issue
Statistics shows that approximately 281 Australians develop diabetes in a day. This means that for every 5 minutes one person gets diabetes. These numbers shows that about 1.8 million Australians suffer from diabetes (Australia’s health, 2015). These include both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. This shows the kind of challenge facing Australian health care system.
Diabetes is an increasing epidemic in Australia because of the lifestyle factors, which include high consumption of caloric foods produced by the food industry along with change in the eating habits. Instead of eating only during meal times, they have decided to eat irregularly and haphazardly with the tendency of eating while watching television. Sedentary lifestyle is part of the factors that contribute to a rise in diabetes and other related diseases such as obesity and cardiovascular diseases. Increased intake of carbohydrate, starch, fats, and sugary food found in fat food industries also contribute to diabetic conditions.
The incidence of diabetes in the population of Australia is a serious medical and social problem. By the end of 2013, the number of registered diabetics in Australia approached 700 thousand (approximately 3.5% of the total population). In fact, according to local researchers, this figure is 2-3 times higher (National Diabetes Week, 2015). Every fifth resident of Australia at the age of 65 years has diabetes. About 70% of people aged over 50 years are at risk. Every year, the number of diabetic patients is increasing by 25-26 thousand people, including more than 4 thousand children (Healy et al., 2018; Magliano et al., 2017). The high incidence is due to not only the well-known risk factors but also the demographic features of our multi-ethnic country.
In Australia, the significant shares (25%) of people are born in other countries. About 30% of the population is immigrants and children of immigrants in the first generation (Dunstan et al., 2012). If among the natives of Australia, the proportion of patients with diabetes is 3.0%, among its inhabitants, who were born in the South, Central, and Southeast Asia, this figure ranges from 6.6 to 9.0% (The Department of Health, 2015).The high-risk group is the aborigines of Australia, who also have high rates of diabetes. Among adults (over 25 years), diabetes affects more than 30% of the population, 6% of Aboriginal children under the age of 14 years. Most importantly, the disease is found in a hidden form (Diabetes Australia, 2015). This problem has to have a decent presentation in the media. It is expected that the rate of diabetes will increase in the coming years and almost half of the Australian population will be diabetic.
Articulation of the solution
Since the major causes of diabetes revolve around the eating habits in the Australian population, the framing of diabetes as an issue will choose the uncontrolled advertisement of fast foods and sugary beverages. The uncontrolled campaigns and promotions done on fast foods has made it distinct and thus regarded as the main cause of the problem (Sun et al., 2016). The advertisement of the fast foods has been done through various ways such as magazines, sports sponsorship, television, road banners and on social media and therefore reaches a sizeable number of people. The frequent repetition of information on TV screens, celebrity endorsements, and the color and the shape of foods are captivating and influence buying actions. This is how unregulated advertisement of fast foods has been framed as the cause of diabetes.
The creation of the advocacy strategy to address diabetes in Australia is aiming to achieve the following. The main communication objectives are the following:
- To start the public opinion re-assessment of the problem to increase awareness.
- To recognize and reduce the increasing rate of Diabetics in Australia.
- To allow the start of the discussion about the problems and needs of people with Diabetes, and how these problems need to be solved and fulfilled
- Promoting children and adults to observe healthier food choices and increase the number of people to do physical activity.
The advocacy strategy targets all the groups including men and women, children, and adults as facts show that increase in diabetes is rising in all groups. Seemingly, the advocacy campaign proposes healthy lifestyle habits in daily endeavors, healthy food habits in children and adults and controlled food advertisement to reduce the impact of food choice to people (Narayan et al., 2014)
Building coalition
- Regulation of uncontrolled food and media advertisement of fast foods
This will be necessitated by allowing the food standard agency to work together with food agencies to make food choices much simpler and healthy. Limitations should be devised by the food standard agency to regulate broadcasting of unhealthy products and drinks that contain salt, fats, or sugar on the media but allow fruits and vegetable broadcasting.
- Promotion of healthy lifestyle
This involves the physical activities that should be carried out. Firstly, the children should be allowed to participate in sports and recreational activities under the Munch and Move program for children during active mealtime. Increased cycling should be incorporated in our day-to-day lives under the “cycling strategy.” Walking should also be part of Australian people to walk for at least 1200 steps apart from the daily routine. A healthy lifestyle requires healthy eating promoted at home, schools and the working place (Tuomilehtoet al., 2011)
Regarding diabetes disease, the main stakeholders that will be involved include food producers, food retailers, employers, non-governmental organization, institution, community workers and local government and many more. The support of major sectors and stakeholders ensures the success of advocacy campaign.
Developing of advocacy strategy
According to Gundersen (2017), community programs should be promoted with increased levels of activities to improve the diet. The community program should also be concerned with changing the behavioral pattern in the community regarding the taste of food. The programs include community programmers in childcare, family setting, and pre-school care. The program should not only focus on parental education but should also put an emphasis on other components such as the group discussions and videos that relate to meal planning. Health professionals should be engaged in voluntary community services (Shaw, Sicree, & Zimmet 2010). The food professionals should work hand in hand with food markets for the promotion of eating habits with sufficient guidance and information. Walking and cycling should also be promoted. Based on the food pricing strategy, fast food should be taxed heavily and subsidize healthy food. In schools, fruits should be introduced in canteens as well as reducing TV watching hours and consequently increasing sports activities after school by allowing children to join football clubs.
Social media plays a vital role in the management and control of diabetes. Some applications have been created and can perform many functions such as Health and nutrition guide on diabetes and can help individuals to keep records. Creation of awareness should be spread through ‘Health Habits and Telephonic Messages’ to promote health and nutritious diet. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn should not be left out in promoting healthy lifestyle and intake of nutritious food (Torgerson et al., 2014).
Evidently, the advocacy strategy campaign against diabetes has focused on promoting healthy lifestyle habits and healthy eating. The campaign has also regulated on consumption of junk food and sugary beverages advertisement that influences the buying and consuming actions of individuals (Mackenbach et al., 2011). The issues resulting from regulation of advertisement and other factors have elicited conflict of interests between competing parties. According to Mackay (2010), food companies and advertisers argue that individual regulation and responsibility should be enough to keep advertising going and its effect put in check.
Furthermore, the public health professional posits that the egocentric interests of advertisers and food companies limit the ability of self-regulation as a result of presenting the information in a more captivating manner and therefore there is the need for the government to intervene to regulate some advertisement. The people who see the government as protecting its citizen will appreciate the effort of the government in regulating advertisement while the proponent will oppose such controls.
The campaign can be modified to address ethical and legal issues. Firstly, the counter-advertising technique should be utilized in advertising the benefits of healthy eating and harmful effects of unhealthy eating habits. Mackay (2013) postulates that the food companies can address this issues through the provision of more information on food products in terms of ‘front of pack labeling’. He further focused on building an environment in which access to healthy food is easier and is a measure due to lack of supermarket.
The indicators below are identified to assess if the advocacy campaign was effective. The first indicator suggests that the food choices of people will not be affected by advertisement and marketing. Secondly, there will be an increase in the number of hours of adults in doing the physical activities. On the first year of the advocacy campaign, diabetes prevalence will have reduced by 10 percent.
Conclusion
Diabetes is one of the burdens of chronic diseases that affect the population in Australia. People of all ages are affected by this problem. It is important to highlight the problem of diabetes and put measures in place to achieve the desired solution. The advocacy campaign focuses on how to address the issue of diabetes to make the citizens of Australia healthy, and diabetes free. To achieve this, Australians should shift into healthy lifestyle, which demands both the government leadership and societal support. The government needs to step up by increasing funding for research and giving incentives private research centers to help improve diabetes treatment since there is no mechanism for its prevention. Accurate data concerning diabetes and successful intervention strategies concerning the disease will also help achieve better results that will secure the future generation and improve the outlook of diabetics.
References
Australia’s health. (2015, January 15). Retrieved April 27, 2018, from AIHW: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports-statistics/health-welfare-overview/australias-health/overview
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