Latest news with #preventableDeaths
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Health
- Yahoo
WHO: Nearly 2 million avoidable deaths per year tied to chronic disease in Europe and Central Asia
The deadliest diseases in Europe aren't caused by viruses – they are chronic health conditions that could be largely avoided with better medical care and public health, a new analysis says. Every year, 1.8 million people in Europe and Central Asia die from avoidable deaths from noncommunicable diseases such as cancer, heart disease, chronic respiratory issues, and diabetes, according to a report from the World Health Organization (WHO). That's down from 2010, but the COVID-19 pandemic has set back efforts to bring down preventable deaths further, the report said. Meanwhile, key risk factors, such as obesity, are on the rise and the burden of chronic conditions is expected to grow as the population continues to age. Related How well are countries in Europe dealing with health issues? New report shows progress is stagnating The analysis spans the WHO's European region, which includes 53 countries in Europe and Central Asia. Across the bloc, one in five men and one in 10 women under the age of 70 die from preventable health issues. Most of these deaths – 60 per cent – are linked to tobacco, alcohol, high blood pressure, unhealthy diets, obesity, or a lack of exercise. Another 40 per cent could be avoided through timely access to health care, the WHO said. 'Noncommunicable diseases are not just preventable or treatable; they are also largely ignored,' Hans Henri Kluge, WHO's Europe director, said in a statement. 'Yet the truth is, if [these conditions] were a virus, the world would be in lockdown,' he added. Related Want to live better in old age? Scientists advise following these eating habits There are major disparities between countries – and they are growing. Since 2010, gaps have widened on tobacco use, obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes, and narrowed only for air pollution and deaths overall. Some countries have made progress. Ten have reduced premature mortality from noncommunicable diseases by at least 25 per cent since 2010: Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland. They have all taken steps to reduce risk factors and strengthen their health systems, the WHO said, calling on other countries to follow suit. Related Living with a chronic health condition in Europe: Which OECD countries are leading the way? The report comes as countries prepare to meet in New York in September for a United Nations conference on noncommunicable diseases. They are expected to focus on access to primary care, mental wellbeing, and the role of businesses and commercial actors in shaping health outcomes, among other topics. 'The high burden of [these diseases] in our societies is not inevitable,' Kluge said. 'We have the power and tools to turn things around'.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
I'm an expert in crafting public health messages: Here are 3 marketing strategies I use to make Philadelphia healthier
In Philadelphia, the leading causes of death are heart disease, cancer and unintentional drug overdose. While some of these deaths are caused by things out of our control – like genetics – many are largely preventable. Preventable deaths are the result of a series of decisions. Whether a person decides to smoke, eat lots of fried foods or be a couch potato, their decisions – sometimes unconsciously – can affect their health. I'm a health communication expert and public health researcher at Temple University in North Philadelphia. I began working in public health in the late 1980s at the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and before that I worked in marketing and public relations. I have spent my career thinking about how health decisions are like many of the decisions consumers make each day around which products to buy. One key difference with health decisions is the inherent risks involved. There isn't much risk in trying a new brand of cereal, but there is risk in riding a motorcycle without a helmet. Many people have a 'that won't happen to me' attitude when making a decision that involves risk. This element of 'risk perception' has guided my interest in health decisions and how to use commercial marketing techniques – the same ones companies use to sell products – to encourage people to get vaccinated, get a colonoscopy or get treated for a medical condition. One strategy I use is segmentation analysis. Segmentation analysis is the process of looking at groups of people who may look like they are all similar on the surface – such as Black women from North Philadelphia – and then breaking them into smaller groups based on differences in their attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. Looking at these 'psychographics' instead of demographics like age or sex can help public health communication researchers better understand how to communicate effectively. For example, I led a study in 2021 that looked at how connected transgender women living in Philadelphia and the San Francisco Bay Area felt to other members of the trans community. We wanted to see if messaging about PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, the medication used to prevent HIV infection, would need to be different depending on how connected they felt. We found that participants who were more engaged with the trans community were not only more knowledgeable about PrEP, but they were also more likely to see the benefits of using it compared with those who were less engaged. This indicates that strategies to reach those not as connected may need to include, for example, providing more basic information about what PrEP is and how it works. Another powerful marketing tool that I use is a process known as perceptual mapping and vector message modeling. Using simple survey answers, we can mathematically model how people are thinking about a health decision and present it in a three-dimensional map. Similar to how someone might think about the relationship between where cities or countries are in relation to each other – such as where Philadelphia is in relation to New York or Chicago – we can take answers from a survey and convert them into distances. We ask people to agree or disagree to statements about the benefits or barriers to a decision and enter their responses into a computer program to create the map. We can then do vector message modeling, which shows how to move the group toward the desired decision. Think back to high school physics when you may have learned about the amount of force, or pushing and pulling, needed to move one object toward another. Vector message modeling helps us figure out which beliefs to push or pull against to get the group to move toward a particular decision, and it helps us create the most persuasive messages for that group. When we use vector modeling along with segmentation analysis, we can also compare how messaging may need to be similar or different for different groups. For example, I used segmentation analysis and then perceptual mapping and vector message modeling to understand how medical mistrust might affect the decision to get vaccinated for COVID-19 among a group of Philadelphians who had not yet been vaccinated. Our team then looked at perceptual maps and vector message modeling by levels of mistrust. The vectors showed that those with high levels of medical mistrust would be more likely to respond to messages that addressed concerns about the pandemic being a hoax, or the worry that minorities wouldn't get the same treatment as others. This allowed us to think about how to build in messages around those issues in public media campaigns or other communication strategies that encourage vaccination. I have used these methods to create and test a number of different communication strategies to influence health decisions. For example, I've developed web-based tools that have been used in hospitals and clinics in Philadelphia to encourage methadone patients with hepatitis C to receive antiviral treatment for their infection, Black cancer patients to take part in a clinical trial or to get genetic testing, and patients with low literacy and higher risk of colorectal cancer to have a colonoscopy. My colleagues and I have also developed posters, booklets and social media posts that encourage low-income and vaccine-hesitant Philadelphians in Kensington to get COVID-19 booster shots; educational slides for low-literacy Philadelphia adults on dirty bombs and how the radioactive weapons might be used in a terror attack; and a comic book for trans women to learn about the benefits of PrEP use. Getting people to make better decisions about their health can be an uphill battle. We all have our reasons for not doing things that are good for us. For example, what did you eat for lunch today? Was it healthy? If not, why did you eat it? My job is to figure out what makes people do what they do, and then help them make decisions that keep them healthy. Read more of our stories about Philadelphia. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Sarah Bauerle Bass, Temple University Read more: Philly residents with opioid addiction get medication from the 'bupe bus' − creating a path for treatment Immigrant moms feel unsafe and unheard when seeking pregnancy care – here's how they'd improve Philly's health care system Mpox, AIDS and COVID-19 show the challenges of targeting public health messaging to specific groups without causing stigma Sarah Bauerle Bass has received funding from a number of organizations, including the National Institutes of Health, the American Cancer Society, Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Departments of Health, and independent pharma research grants from Gilead and Merck.
Associated Press
14-05-2025
- Associated Press
Rights groups say migrant workers are dying on Saudi job sites as kingdom prepares for World Cup
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Scores of laborers from countries including India, Bangladesh and Nepal have faced preventable deaths from electrocution, road accidents, falling from heights, and more while working in Saudi Arabia, according to a report Wednesday by the advocacy group Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch and another rights group, FairSquare, released separate investigations Wednesday detailing preventable deaths of migrant workers from job-site accidents and work-related illnesses. The reports accuse Saudi authorities of often misreporting such deaths and failing to investigate, preventing families from receiving compensation from the kingdom that they are entitled to and knowing how their loved ones died. As Saudi Arabia pushes ahead with hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure and development initiatives — including the 2034 men's soccer World Cup and the futuristic city Neom — rights groups warn of thousands more avoidable deaths in the coming years. In one case, Human Rights Watch said a Bangladeshi worker was electrocuted on the job. But his employer allegedly withheld the body, telling the family they would be compensated only if they agreed to a local burial. Another family reported waiting nearly 15 years before they were compensated by the Saudi government. 'It's very urgent that the Saudi authorities and FIFA put in place basic labor rights protections,' Minky Worden, Human Rights Watch's director of global initiatives, told The Associated Press, referring to soccer's world governing body. Authorities in Saudi Arabia did not respond to a request for comment. FairSquare, which looked into the deaths of 17 Nepali contractors in Saudi Arabia over the last 18 months, warned in its report that without accountability, 'thousands of unexplained deaths' of low-paid foreign workers are likely to follow. 'In some cases, you have families being pursued by money lenders for the loans that their (dead) husband or father took out in order to migrate to the Gulf,' said James Lynch, who co-directs FairSquare. Saudi Arabia has long faced allegations of labor abuses and wage theft tied to its Vision 2030 project, a big-money effort to diversify its economy beyond dependence on oil. FIFA shared with the AP a letter it sent Human Rights Watch last month defending the selection of Saudi Arabia as host of the 2034 World Cup. The letter cited the Saudis' commitments to establishing 'a workers' welfare system' and enhancing 'country-wide labor protections including through a strengthened collaboration' with the United Nations' International Labor Organization. The kingdom is not the only Gulf Arab state to be accused of abusing migrant laborers in the run-up to a World Cup. Rights groups also criticized Qatar, which hosted the competition in 2022, saying they tallied thousands of unexplained worker deaths. But this time has the potential to be even worse for foreign workers, Worden said, noting that the 2034 World Cup has plans to require more stadiums and infrastructure with more teams competing. Qatar established an oversight board called the Supreme Committee, which monitored FIFA construction sites and took reports of unsafe work conditions. 'There's no such committee like that in Saudi Arabia,' Worden said, adding, 'In the end, Qatar did have concrete policies like life insurance and heat protection. Those aren't in place now' in Saudi Arabia. The details of the investigations from Human Rights Watch and FairSquare come a day after FIFA President Gianni Infantino joined U.S. President Donald Trump on his official visit to Saudi Arabia, where Trump met with Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
