Why is gun violence a global health problem?
Globally, there are over 900 million firearms with most of them belonging to civilians (the public); a number which is approximately 253 million or 29% greater than passenger vehicles. About 8 million guns and 10 to15 billion rounds of bullets are manufactured yearly. The number of bullets manufactured in a year is double the world’s population, meaning that there are more than enough bullets to shoot- and potentially kill, everybody in the world. As many as 1000 people die daily from firearm or gun-related homicide, much more are injured. According to the United Nations (UN), deaths due to guns and firearms surpass that of all other weapons combined. As a matter of fact, some years record more deaths from gun related violence than there were in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Financially, the legal international trade in firearms and bullets are in the excess of $7.1 billion dollars annually. Apart from the public health trauma and emotional pain of losing so many lives, the economic costs of gun related violence in the United States is $229 billion annually including hospital, court and prison costs.
In the year 2000, the then UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, described the magnitude of the menace and death due to gun violence in these words:
“The death toll from small arms dwarfs that of all other weapons systems — and in most years greatly exceeds the toll of the atomic bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In terms of the carnage they cause, small arms, indeed, could well be described as ‘weapons of mass destruction’.” — Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General, March 2000”
The facts above point to the fact that gun violence is a costly global health problem that needs to be controlled. This problem is particularly prevalent for so many reasons, but one clearly identified in the 2011 Global Study on Homicide is that it is much more common in countries with low standards of human development, high income inequality and weak regulations and law regarding the sale and use of firearms. In the United States of America for example, an average of 88 per 100 people own guns, which is the highest gun ownership rate in the world. The second and third countries, Yemen and Switzerland, have a gun ownership rate of 54.8 per 100 people and 45.5 per 100 people respectively. However, it’s not always the country where people have the most guns that have the worst firearm murder rates. For instance, countries such as Iraq, El Salvador and Jamaica are reported to have the highest murder rates due to guns and firearms, even though some reporters believe that the US has the highest.
In more equitable societies with socio-economic stability, there seems to be less occurrences of homicide and gun related violence. Gun control laws and policies are essential to regulate the manufacture, sale, transfer, possession, modification, or use of guns by the public within a country. People against gun control argue that it is a great means of self defense that plays an integral role in one’s protection, others in favor contend that while guns play an important role in protection, they have also caused much destruction. At such, rigorous background checks and investigations are recommendations that should precede the purchase and use of firearms.
References available on request.
Youth violence and other ferocious behaviors such as weapon carrying and fighting, have been associated with early school bullying (Kim et al., (2006). Bullying and being bullied are public health problems and also major risk factors for the later development of psychopathologic behaviors (Kim et. Al, (2006). Through an observation of prospective design, use of large samples and precise analytic approaches, (Kim et al., (2006) showed that many youths are involved in bullying and that there are inherent health and social problems that result from both being a bully and being bullied.
Prevalent at between 9% and 54%, bullying is a global endemic that requires urgent efforts towards prevention and intervention. In a study involving 1,639 children, (Wolke et al (2001) examined the association of two kinds of bullying, direct (hitting) and relational (cruel manipulation of peer relationships), with common health problems. His findings showed that approximately 4% of the children studied were found to be direct bullies while 10.2% were relational bullies. He also found that 39.8% of these children were victims and had been bullied. Both bullies and their victims were most likely to have physical health symptoms such as sore throats, colds, and coughs. High psychosomatic health problems including poor appetite and fear of going to school were mostly observed in bullied victims (Wolke et al (2001).
The association between victimization from bullying and adverse effects on physical and psychological health is well documented in literature. However, it remains unclear whether it is the victimization that precedes the health-related symptoms or vice versa. A six-month cohort study with baseline follow-up measurements of 18 elementary schools in the Netherlands showed that victims of bullying were significantly more likely to develop new psychosomatic and psychosocial problems compared to children who were not bullied. On the other hand, some children with existing psychosocial disorders such as depression and anxiety were more likely to experience bullying and victimization. The study involving 1,118 children aged 9 to 11 years, measured a wide variety of psychosocial and psychosomatic symptoms, including depression, anxiety, bedwetting, headaches, insomnia, anorexia and feelings of pressure or fatigue (Fekkes, Minne, et al, (2006).
Because bullying and victimization can result in a variety of health problems and adversely affect children’s attempts to cope with pre-existing health conditions, it is imperative to educate and empower children with resistant and coping skills. To ensure more children neither become bullies nor bullied, they should be taught these skills at every level in the society including family, school, church and the community at large.
Racism is an ideology and prejudice that directly or indirectly emphasises that one group is inherently superior to another. It is an intentional or unintentional distinction, conduct, action, inaction or predisposition towards people based on their ethnicity and characteristics such as accent or manner of speech, name, clothing, diet, belief and leisure preferences. Being a socially constructed term, racism can prove difficult to define. However, it is easily reflected in racial jokes, slurs, hate crimes, presumptions, attitudes and stereotypical beliefs. In many cases, these reflections have become unconsciously assimilated over time as true, and have formed systematic, institutional and structural foundations in the societies. Racism can occur at any level including, individual, families and communities, leading to disparities in many areas of life such as health, economy, social class and education, to name a few.
Racism is a major problem because it is very common and affects lives on a daily basis. Many disparities between ethnic groups can most likely be attributed to racism. A national survey in the United Kingdom (UK) revealed that about 40% of participants would discriminate against ethnic minorities. In 1999, an estimated 282,000 crimes committed in the UK were motivated by racial discrimination. Racism inspires fear in about one-third of people from ethnic minorities causing them to constrain their lives, thereby stifling their opportunity to contribute fully to the future and growth of their societies.
Some studies have shown an association between racism, morbidity and mortality and that it may be of etiologic importance in the development of illnesses or diseases (McKenzie, K. (2003) Karlsen S, Nazroo J., 2002, Karlsen S, Nazroo J., 2002). Cross sectional studies in the United States show associations between perceived racial discrimination and hypertension, birth weight, self related health, and sick days. Additionally, victims of discrimination were more likely to have respiratory illness, hypertension, long term limiting illness, anxiety, depression, and psychosis in a recent study from the UK. Racial biases and cultural insensitivity among doctors have been linked to poor communication with patients, dissatisfaction with care and decreased global health outcomes. The risk of mental illness was seen to increase in people who believed that most companies were discriminatory. Furthermore, racism may be associated with illness at an ecological level since a 1% increase in racial disrespect in a state in the US was associated with an increase of 350.8 per 100 000 in “black” all cause mortality.
It is important to note that racism, being a social construct with confounders that may not properly be accounted for, is a difficult concept to measure. At such, most the studies done are only secondary analyses, even though it seems well established that discrimination at multiple levels influences health. Furthermore, the different ways that racism is reflected such as through interpersonal violence, institutional discrimination, or socioeconomic disadvantage, have different damaging effects on health, notwithstanding of the health indicator used.
On a final note, the starting point to effectively address racism and racial discrimination is to acknowledge it’s existence, and then fight it through public education and advancement of human rights.
So, if you ever thought, “what on earth racism does racism have to do with health?… now you know, and you’re welcome!
The enduring wealth gap faced by the world today is a public health problem, and a social determinant of health. It is created by income inequality, defined as the unequal and unfair distribution of individual or household income across various contributors in an economy. Statistically, income inequality is described as a ratio of the percentage of an income to a percentage of population. Compared to previous years, the world seems to have become wealthier overall. This may be attributed to the fact that minimum wage increases, it may also be as a result of more people getting educated and therefore, earning more since education has been linked to increase in income. However, this increase in the world’s wealth does not seem to narrow or close the enduring wealth gap between the rich and the poor. In fact, the gap between rich and poor people continues to widen, creating disparities in all areas of life, notably health.
Since the 80’s, income inequality has been increasing at an obvious rate. At that time, 30 to 35% of national income was going to the top 10% of earners while 90% of earners had the remaining percentage. More recently, the wealth gap has even become more obvious as the percentage of income going to the top 10% has increased to 50%, creating a huge disparity between high earners and low earners. According to Forbes, the 10 richest billionaires in the world own $505 billion in combined wealth, a sum greater than the total goods and services produced annually by most countries. A 2006 study published by the United Nations University’s World Institute for Development Economics Research found that the richest 1% of world are worth at least 39.9% of the world’s household wealth. This amount is a lot greater than the wealth of the world’s poorest 95% combined.
There are many consequences of income inequality and the resulting wealth gap. These consequences are consistent across a broad spectrum of both economic, health, political and social indicators. The impacts of high levels of income inequality exist across and within countries reflecting areas of economic growth, health, social well-being, and political stability, social inequalities. Some of these impacts include: decreased economic growth, increased health and social problems, political instability and social inequalities, especially among children. Needless to say, the poor are usually the ones affected by these consequences as they do not have the power or the position to help themselves. These poor individuals, being deprived may not sufficiently contribute to the economy, further hindering economic growth and development.
Strengthening labor unions, increasing minimum wage and investing in education are few ways that may reduce income inequality. However, it’ll take years of commitment and consistence from governments of all nations to have a world where income inequality is absent and wealth gap is at the barest minimum.
Broadly speaking, aid is any assistance offered to an individual, group, organization or country by another. When aid crosses borders, from one country, organization or multilateral institution, to another, it becomes international aid- assistance offered on an international level, usually to countries in need. In most cases, aid is provided as funds which serve as official developmental assistance (ODA), typically targeted towards poverty reduction, public welfare and economic development. Some international organizations that offer significant aid include United States Agency for International Development (USAID), World Food Programme (WFP), , the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations (UN). In addition to international organizations, countries such as the United States of America and Canada have a reputation for providing international aid.
International aid is a worthy cause that has saved millions of lives over the years. USAID alone, which is essentially in charge of administering civilian international aid in the United States, saves more than 3 million lives each year through immunization programs. Additionally, over 850,000 people are educated about HIV while up to 40,000 have been trained to protect their countries through USAID. WFP offers unique technical assistance and capacity development to countries by responding to gaps, identified through an extensive assessment, to end hunger, achieve food security and improve nutrition by 2030. WFP assists 80 million people in 80 countries yearly, being the leading humanitarian organization which fights worldwide hunger by delivering food support in emergencies and working with communities to improve nutrition and foster resilience.
WHO, as a public health giant, aims to build a healthier future for people in all nations of the world. Located in over 150 countries, WHO staff work with national governments and several other partners to provide different types of resources and ensure the highest attainable level of health for all people. Millennium development gaols (MDGs) represent WHO’s commitment to making the world a healthier place through international aid. The UN, through the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), aims to achieve international co-operation by solving international problems of economic, social, cultural, and humanitarian nature. The first aid offered by the UN was to help rebuild Europe, after Second World War which left the continent devastated. This shows that international aid, and aid In general, is not only for developing countries but for any country needing support. The international community now relies on the UN to coordinate humanitarian relief operations caused by natural and man-made disasters, beyond the capacity of national repair.
Despite being a huge part, as clearly seen in the preceding paragraphs, money is not the only component of international aid. Aid is not just a matter of handing out funds and resources to people and countries that need it. It is a statement of oneness and unity in the world, it constitutes a commitment and an effort to sincerely help in restructuring sectors and countries in need of support and assistance.
Family planning is the act or practice of regulating the number of children and the spacing between their births, predominantly by means of artificial contraception or voluntary sterilization. Couples choose to plan their families for several reasons that include health, financial abilities and social responsibilities. it is a necessary and significant human right, essential to both gender equality and women empowerment. Given it’s significance, accessibility to, and choice for safe, affordable and effective family planning should be a fundamental right for all women. Unfortunately though, up to about 225 million women worldwide who intend to control, delay or stop bearing children are unable to access safe and effective family planning methods for a myriad of reasons. The major reason being that most of these women live in the poorest nations and parts of the world, where there is abject lack of information, services, access and support for family planning. These nations are also the same countries that lag behind in issues regarding gender equality and women empowerment, major social changes that emphasize the rights of women.
There are many benefits of family planning in addition to the most obvious which is to decrease the escalating and unsustainable world population. Reduced population growth is associated with many positive and healthy consequences such as poverty reduction, preservation of natural resources and all forms of development. Other benefits of family planning include:
- reduces the need for abortion
- reinforces people’s rights to choose or not to procreate
- prevents deaths of mothers and children by preventing unintended pregnancies and births
- empowers families to birth desired number of children and determine pregnancy spacing
- secures women’s well-being and autonomy and supports health and development
- enables people to make informed choices about their sexual and reproductive health
- prevents transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections
Given these benefits, it is therefore important that family planning is made easily available and accessible to sexually active people, including adolescents, through midwives and other trained health professionals. Midwives are specially trained to provide locally available and culturally appropriate contraceptive methods. Other trained health professionals such as community health workers, may provide counselling and distribute pills and condoms which serve as other family planning methods. Highly advanced or technical family planning methods such as sterilization including vasectomy and tubectomy, require the expertise of clinicians and specialists.
To promote family planning, the World Health Organization (WHO) is working to establish quality, safety and delivery standards and guidelines to help countries introduce, adapt and implement family planning tools and methods to meet their needs. Similarly, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) supports and increases access to family planning by consistently supplying quality contraceptives, advocacy, data collection, networking important stakeholders and offering programmatic, technical and financial assistance to countries that need it.
In general, migration is the movement of humans and animals from one location to another. For humans, it is a process that is completed in two steps, emigration and immigration. Emigration represents the act of leaving one’s resident country with the intent to settle elsewhere while immigration is the movement into a new country for settlement. This continuous process migration happens for many reasons, either by choice or as a result of unfortunate circumstances. People who migrate by choice to settle in other countries for hope of a better life, are referred to as immigrants in the countries they choose to settle in. On the other hand, individuals who migrate as a result of unfortunate and compelling conditions are called refugees.
Refugees are individuals who fled their countries because of a well-founded fear of persecution, violence, natural disaster, war or death. They flee without any intention to return home due to the situations for which they fled in the first place. As stated in the preceding paragraph, a refugee is different from an immigrant because of the absence of choice in the case of refugees. For this reason global immigration laws differ for immigrants and refugees. For the latter, laws are made from a humanitarian standpoint to protect these individuals, and the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), along with private sponsors are responsible for identifying refugees for resettlement. In Canada, there are two parts of the refugee system: the Refugee and Humanitarian Resettlement Program, for people who need protection outside Canada and the In-Canada Asylum Program for people making refugee protection claims within Canada.
The health status of refugees remain a significant component of their migration process. Given the reasons for which the emigrate their home countries, it is inevitable to experience trauma and other health conditions. The world health organization recognizes some of the most frequent health problems of newly arrived refugees including accidental injuries, hypothermia, burns, gastrointestinal illnesses, cardiovascular events, diabetes and hypertension. In addition, females are more likely to experience violence as well as specific health challenges that involve pregnancy and delivery-related complications, maternal, newborn and reproductive health challenges. Medical conditions such as psycho-social disorders, drug abuse, nutrition disorders, alcoholism and exposure to violence are some of the risks associated with population movements and they increase vulnerability to noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Refugee children require access to suitable health care because they are most vulnerable and prone to respiratory infections and gastrointestinal illnesses due to poor living conditions and hygiene. These poor conditions also lead to skin infections.
Furthermore, the risk of death for refugee immigrants are high because of the methods by which they flee their home countries. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the number of casualties and deaths among refugees crossing the Mediterranean Sea increased, with over 3100 people estimated to have either gone missing or died at sea in 2015. Having been through so much trauma in the course of fleeing, host countries ought to be receptive and compassionate through friendly policies and actions in order to nullify impact of the negative experiences of refugees. There is need to compassionately and carefully monitor the health status of refugees in host communities as well as foster developments that will improve the quality of their lives.
Safety is defined as the state of being free from or immune to danger or injury. Therefore, water safety simply means the condition of being safe and protected from dangers and injuries that may result from using water.
The concept of water safety is very important given that approximately 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water. More so, water is all around us; in rivers and lakes, in icecaps, aquifers and glaciers, in the ground as soil moisture and in air as water vapor. In fact, the earth is a ‘watery’ place. In addition to its ubiquitous nature in the universe, man’s need for water cannot be paralleled; an estimated 408 billion gallons of water are used in the United States per. Water is so important because we constantly need and use it on a daily basis and for many reasons including drinking, cooking, bathing, washing, swimming and for other activities. For this reason, it’s really necessary to ensure that the water we use is clean and safe. That way, we are protected.
Many times, water is contaminated by different chemicals or micro-organisms through some natural means, man-made activities and poor hygiene. These contaminants must be removed through some treatment or purification process to make water clean and safe. Additionally, diseases that result from contaminated water and their associated health impacts are numerous and threatening. Every year, up to 3.6 million people die from a disease related to using unsafe, unclean and unhealthy water. Approximately 80% of diseases in many third-world countries are associated with water, causing millions of deaths; for example, diarrhoea alone kills 5,000 children daily- about one child every 17 seconds. Classes of diseases associated with water are usually preventable including water-borne, water-washed and water-related diseases. Hence, if water is clean safe and healthy, all associated diseases will be eliminated from the world and many deaths will be prevented.
A study on the “Molecular assessment of bacterial pathogens- a contribution to drinking water safety” showed that current developments in molecular detection technologies for bacterial pathogens in drinking water can potentially improve the safety of drinking water supplies by specifically detecting and identifying pathogens. Furthermore, many purification, treatment and molecular approaches have improved the understanding of infection routes for water-borne diseases, effects of changes in drinking water treatment, and management of freshwater resources. These and many more advancements are on track to ensure water safety is prioritized and realized.
The collection and storage of knowledge and information is a practice as old as civilization, and some evidence exist to support this. Over 5,000 years ago, approximately 30,000 clay tablets which contained information sources were found in ancient Mesopotamia. Also, papyrus scrolls, from 1300-1200BC and clay tablets, from 704-681BC have been uncovered by Archeologists in ancient cities of Egypt and Assyria respectively.
In recent times, the method of collecting and storing information has changed, and the term, Library is used to represent this practice. By definition, a Library is a collection or group of collections of educative resources and repositories organized in a variety of formats. Libraries may also refer to buildings, rooms, facilities or just cabinets that contain a collection of books or other print or non-print materials, periodicals, films and music organized and maintained for use (entertainment, study, research, etc.) within, or for borrowing. They are found in communities, institutions and homes and can be classified as either public or private. Sometimes, the room, building, or facility that houses a library is not necessarily built for that purpose but merely provides access to a collection of information sources.
Librarians are information professionals and other experts who are trained to provide convenient physical, digital, bibliographic or intellectual access to the people who use the library. Institutional libraries, such as university and school libraries, designed for a specific audience are staffed by librarians and other personnel trained to provide services that meet the needs of users. They mange and offer specific services or assistance with the purpose of educating, informing and entertaining various audiences who need the library and require their support.
Libraries are built or created for the goal of inspiring individual learning and creativity as well as advancing societies as a whole. They are usually the only easily available source of comprehensive information essential for personal and professional development. Libraries are important sources of information for all sectors of the society and areas of life including health, socio-economic, environmental, physical and spiritual. They are particularly important for research, knowledge acquisition and information sharing. Communities benefit when members use library resources to make smart business decisions, improve job skills and develop their talents because these actions create empowered citizens and pave ways that enrich the economy. Furthermore, libraries can act as community and cultural centers where struggling or depressed neighbors and colleagues can meet people and revitalize themselves, thereby improving the quality of life.
The directory containing information on libraries is available in an alphabetical order by country in World Guide to Libraries, published by K.G. Saur. Two of the comprehensive worldwide online directories of library homepages are Libdex and Libweb.
Broadly conceptualized, social change represents any change in social relations. Like change in general, it is in constant existence in our societies. However, the distinction between social change and other forms of change in the society is that the former is significant and encompasses processes that modify the social structure while the latter serves primarily to maintain the social structure. More specifically, sociologists define social change as any alteration over time in social behavior systems and cultural values or norms that result in significant social consequences and impact society prominently.
Some social changes that have shown to have significant long‐term effects in the world include industrial revolution, abolition of slavery, technological advancement and the feminist movement. In our societies, social change may occur for various reasons and result from a number of sources. Some of these sources include research and information, diffusion, immigration and contact with other societies; changes in the ecosystem which results in loss of natural resources or emergence of diseases, technological change characterised by industrial revolution; and population growth. In addition to the above sources, social movements have also played vital roles in inspiring dissatisfied members of a society to bring about social change. These movements may be ideological, economic, religious and political in nature and are perpetuated by protests and activism and sometimes, violence.
In order to understand and explain patterns and causes of social change, three theories are used by sociologists and they include: Evolutionary, Functionalist, and Conflict theories of change. These theories all acknowledge that the first response to social movements is resistance, particularly when people with dissimilar interests feel threatened by potential changes.
There are several peculiarities with social change. These changes may happen all the time and are almost always constant; an example being the rate at which technology advancement occurs. On the other hand, some other changes, such as structural or systematic shifts in norms and values, are much slower in occurrence. Social change may be deliberate and intentional or completely unexpected and unplanned; for one, developed societies, like as the United States, actively promote many kinds of change which are usually controversial. In general, some changes are more significant than others; changes in trends and fashions, although very obvious and prominent, are much less significant compared to major inventions and the advancement of technology.
Transitions in the labour market and social systems can either be relieving or burdensome on people’s economic security, social adaptability and psychology. This consequence of social change directly affects mental health by causing social stress.
