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UPDATED – list of disease essay questionsSection 1 – What are the global patterns of disease and can
factors be identified that determine these?
1. Evaluate the relative importance of social (or economic
/environmental) factors in influencing patterns of disease. (33)
It could be said that social factors are highly important in influencing the spread of
disease, however, their relative importance will fluctuate greatly depending on the
type of disease and the way in which it spreads, for example if it is communicable
and therefore, social factors will play a role in its transmission, and the location in
which the disease is endemic.
- judgement - for communicable diseases, social factors will be of a great relative
importance
Creates an environment that it can spread in
Poverty - 80% of the population living below the poverty line
Infrastructure able to be broken - sewage etc contaminated other water sources
(used for drinking etc so people contaminated)
lack of sanitation - only 69% of the population had access to improved water
sources,
People used other water sources e.g. artibonite river for cleaning – as the water was
contaminated when they used it they caught cholera
83% of the population didn’t have access to human waste disposal
Had to dispose waste in rivers etc
catalysed the spread - as if the person were infected their waste would contain the cholera
bacteria - bacteria moves into the water source and travels through this – hierarchal diffusion
education - only 67% of the population attending primary school (families relied on
children to work as their income is so low)
Not aware of santiation methods – less handwashing – more likely to contract
cholera as the bacteria would remain on their hands and would be ingested when eating
– unaware they are exposing themselves to disease – expanision diffusion
intrinsic link between social and economic factors can make it increasingly difficult to
distinguish between the two and their influence on the spread of disease (people act the
way they do due to poverty)
Also due to environmental - January 2010, 15km southwest of the Haitan capital of Port-
au-Prince, there was an earthquake that measured 7.0 magnitude
Shallow depth so shock waves spread - damaged infrastructure – people couldn’t get
food etc - crisis
the UN sent over many aid groups, including a team from Nepal. An outbreak of ‘El
Tor’ cholera had occurred in Nepal prior to the troops being deployed to Haiti
Troops infected – sewage fed into artibonite river – people who used river
contracted it
Had to come over due to ECONOMIC reasosn
,Thus it can be seen that despite social factors having a large role to play in the spreading of
this disease, due to uneducated usage of the river causing further contamination, these
social factors all seem to be driven by extreme states of poverty, therefore, showing
economic factors to be of a higher relative importance. Moreover, due to the spatial spread
of the disease along the Artibonite River that due to the water-borne nature of this disease,
the environmental factors also have a high relative importance in the spread of cholera.
Social factors can also be seen as of a high relative importance for many diseases in
countries high up on the epidemiological scale due to the way of life conducted due to the
social norms of the people.
- E.g. - China = issue with air pollution
- leads to 1.6 million deaths each year.
- estimated 92% of the population of China experience >120 hours of unhealthy air
(compared to the US EPA standard) - due to urbanization and increased westernized
lifestyle in China - more environmental pollution, more exposure to carcinogens.
- ALSO expanding car ownership - estimated increase from 5 million vehicles on
Chinese roads in 1990 to 400 million by 2030.
- cars release particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide + other air pollutants - increase
prevalence of pollution diseases e.g. lung cancer.
- THUS due to social change in transport usage + more westernised approach -
increase in diseases
- ALSO social practices and change in social norms, e.g. heating and cooking using coal
+ other biomass fuels indoors = increased exposure to carcinogens indoors, so more
spread of respiratory related diseases, e.g. asthma and cancers of the lungs
- ALSO consumption of fossil fuels e.g. coal – increases air pollution
- China gets 80% of its electricity and 70% of its total energy from coal (number one
source of air pollution in China)
- THUS social practices associated with Westernized way of living produces pollutants
and cause non-communicable diseases
- ALSO social norms can be seen through rural-urban divide which correlates with
spread of disease.
- E.g. higher smoking prevalence in rural populations
- Tobacco smoking accounted for 24% of all cancer deaths in China; over one half of
adult Chinese men were smokers in 2010.
- Showing social factors e.g. smoking spread cancers - despite lung cancers, arthritis,
smokers cough and other smoking related diseases all being non-communicable - the
practices which cause them are communicable by social norms
- ECONOMIC social factors cause the spread of the disease in the first place, the
management is dictated by economic factors (influences healthcare system)
- E.g. economy is poorer in rural areas + no state provided healthcare in China
(political)
- SO diseases are untreated
- ALSO political factors - government do little to prevent spread of pollution and air-
quality related diseases
- E.g. failure to instigate universally designed agreements to decrease pollution levels.
, - In 2013, China announced plans to control the use of coal in order to combat the
levels of air pollution in its major cities yet resistance from local governments and
industrial sectors to caps on coal usage was high.
- THUS conflicting interests = causes of these diseases = economy and politically
fuelled.
- China's cities = heavy industry, metal smelters and coal-fired power plants - critical
to keeping the fast-growing economy
- interests are more deeply rooted in the economic gains than the health of the
population, showing the economic and political factors also have a huge importance
in the spread of disease.
MJ - Overall, it could be assessed that in the case of these non-communicable diseases
caused by air pollution, social factors have a high relative importance in causing the spread
in the first place as they are attributed to life-style decisions associated with a high
consumption rate of fossil fuels, therefore, causing pollutants as people fuel the demand for
the products of polluting factories and pollute themselves with vehicular usage. However,
the power to prevent the spread, due to political instabilities lies mainly with only a few
powerful figures who have their interests based much more firmly in economic growth and
as a result, the economic and political factors have a large role to play in the spread.
Overall, the relative importance of social factors in causing disease can be seen as altering
depending on the type of disease and it's spread and the location in which the disease is
found. In LIDs, such as Haiti, in which communicable diseases are usually the most
prevalent, social factors can be seen as highly important in the communication of the
disease, therefore, increasing the rate of it's spread due to a lack of education in social
norms allowing for an increased exposure to pathogens. However, economic factors dictate
these social norms as poverty only enables people to live in a certain way in which they lack
the capacity to reduce their exposure through increasing sanitation as they have to utilise
the resources available to them even if this increases the spread of disease. Such a way of
economic and political factors dictating social norms and therefore, the diminishing relative
importance of social factors can also be seen in China, in which the huge factories cause
pollution on a much wider scale than people smoking. However, the social factors could be
seen as of much greater relative importance in this case as the economic power is driven by
a demand from the people for these resources, therefore, showing that the social factors
drive the authorities to continue these polluting, disease causing practices. However, as
already stated, here the intrinsic link between economic and social factors and their
symbiotic relationship makes it increasingly hard to distinguish between the relative
importance of the two other than to determine that they are both responsible for the
spread of these man-made diseases and without one the other would not exist, therefore,
making them of the utmost relative importance.
2. ‘Physical factors influence the spread of disease more than human
factors.’ Discuss.(33)
Releif / water sources
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