America is notorious for poverty which has been alive for, well forever. Although, despite all the negativity going on in the world, for the past couple years it has been calculated that poverty rates are skyrocketing. Poverty exists when people lack safe, stable and appropriate places to live. Sheltered and unsheltered people are in poverty . People living doubled up or in overcrowded living situations or motels because of not enough economic resources and those living in tents or other temporary enclosures. Individuals without homes often lack access to health care treatment (Kushel et al., 2001). Chronic health problems and inaccessibility to medical and dental care can increase school absences and limit employment opportunities (APA, 2010). People without homes have higher rates of hospitalizations for physical illnesses, mental illness and substance abuse than other populations (Kushel et al., 2001; Salit, Kuhn, Hartz, Vu, & Mosso, 1998). Around 1.2 billion people in the world live in extreme poverty (less than one dollar per day). Poverty creates ill-health because it forces people to live in environments that make them sick, without decent shelter, clean water or proper sanitation. The conditions associated with poverty make it extremely difficult for low-income people to make their health a priority. Poor education, limited jobs opportunities, lack of transportation, substandard housing, abandoned buildings, unsafe neighborhoods, insufficient access to healthy food options, and exposure to environmental downgrades. Tthese and other factors combine with low income to create a term called a “feedback cycle” in which poverty and poor health reinforce and carry on each other.
Poor health (illness, injury and/or disability) can cause homelessness when people have insufficient income to afford housing. This may be the result of being unable to work or becoming bankrupted by medical bills. Living on the street or in homeless shelters exacerbates existing health problems and causes new ones. Chronic diseases, such as hypertension, asthma, diabetes, mental health problems and other ongoing conditions, are difficult to manage under stressful circumstances and may worsen. Acute problems such as infections, injuries, and pneumonia are difficult to heal when there is no place to rest and recuperate. Living on the street or in shelters also brings the risk of communicable disease (such as STDs or TB) and violence (physical, sexual, and mental) because of crowded living conditions and the lack of privacy or security. Medications to manage health conditions are often stolen, lost, or compromised due to rain, heat, or other factors.
Poor physical health is associated with poverty in general but seems to be more pronounced among those who are without homes. Rates of mental illness among people who are homeless in the United States are twice the rate found for the general population (Bassuk et al., 1998). 47 percent of homeless women meet the criteria for a diagnosis of major depressive disorder—twice the rate of women in general (Buckner, Beardslee, & Bassuk, 2004). When compared with the general population, people without homes have poorer physical health, including higher rates of tuberculosis, hypertension, asthma, diabetes and HIV/AIDS (Zlotnick & Zerger, 2008), as well as higher rates of medical hospitalizations (Kushel et al., 2001). Sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS are prevalent among some subgroups of people without homes. Age, gender and ethnicity are linked to such HIV/AIDS risk behaviors as injection drug use and high-risk sexual practices (Song et al., 1999).
When people have stable housing, they no longer need to prioritize finding a place to sleep each night and can spend more time managing their health, making time for doctors’ appointments, and adhering to medical advice and directions. Housing also decreases the risk associated with further disease and violence. In many ways, housing itself can be considered a form of health care because it prevents new conditions from developing and existing conditions from worsening.
According to research, poverty comes in many forms. (eSchoolToday, Different Types Of Poverty) There is first, absolute poverty, which is the extreme poverty where you lack basic food, water, and housing. Second is relative poverty, which refers to a family that are considered poor because they cannot afford much materialistic things for themselves. Third is situational poverty which states that a family can suddenly meet poverty in uncontrollable situations such as an earthquake destroying their home, but in time they can get themselves out of it. Lastly is generational or chronic poverty, which the case of poverty where it is passed onto someone from their generations before them and it is almost impossible to recover from it. When did this all start? Or how did this all start? Well let’s go back to the stock market crash in October 1929 which we all know as the start of the Great Depression. (Linda Alchin, Great Depression Poverty) This time period in American history consisted of stock values failing leading to the damage of business investments, leading to a harsh economic decline that was not only occurring in the United States but to other countries. Those who lived in poverty during this time period was denied enough income to reach their basic needs and from that point on, poverty came infamously into existence and further makes a relation to health issues.
Roughly, over the past 20 years, numerous studies and analyses have supported out the role that location, physical environment and other social things play in the overall health of individuals and communities. A 1993 study published in the “Journal of the American Medical Association” examining the non-genetic factors that contribute to death in the United States found that fully one-half of all deaths could be a cause to behavior and lifestyle; as for the rest, 20 percent were due to environmental exposure, 20 percent to biological determinants, and only 10 percent to healthcare.The evidence is clear that people with low income fare poorly in the social factors of health and, as a result, face a lifetime of poor health.
Today, for the first time in history, half of the world’s population lives in cities. The United Nations estimates that the number of urban residents will increase by more than two billion people by 2030, whereas the country’s population will decline by about 20 million. Of the many risks to health that are linked to rapid urbanization, none is more effective than the rise of urban poverty, manifested by the growth of informal settlements. Whereas rising urban poverty is evident in the developed world, this trend is more said in growing countries.
UN-HABITAT states are another reason why poverty is a public health issue. The global urban slum population is expected to double from one billion (estimated in 2002) to nearly two billion by 2030 (from 32% to 41% of the world’s urban population), and to approximately three billion by 2050.8 Among the one billion people who live in easy settlements today, one-third of households are headed by women. Hundreds of millions of children and youth live and work in depraved conditions in urban areas. According to the latest Global Report on Human Settlements, 43% of the urban population in developing regions lives in slums. In the least developed countries, 78% are slum-dwellers.10 The scale and speed of this action pose serious and compelling risks and challenges to health—in sum, it is a crisis of un controlling numbers.
The urban setting in a globalized world is increasing exposure to unhealthy environments, disasters, climate change, violence and injuries, tobacco and other drugs, and epidemics including HIV-AIDS. Without access to decent shelter, health care, and resources, the urban poor face the greatest threat. Given current demographic trends, the majority of all urban inhabitants in years to come will suffer uneven exposure to the triple burden of ill health: injuries, diseases, and non knowing diseases.
But then again we must think about if the people in poverty choose to be poor and develop health concerns because of their bad choices. Homeless shouldn't be treated as a more serious issue because people who are drug addicts mooch the system. We spend billions of dollar each year feeding addicts who get free meals, free beds, free clothes, etc. All because they have vices and are lazy. If we stop providing kitchens and beds and food, the supply will decrease and the amount of people able to get away with mooching will as well.
A new survey of panhandlers in downtown San Francisco shows a number of myths that society’s mindset about homeless people. Conventional wisdom is that those on the sidewalk asking for a dollar are lazy freeloaders who will use the money for alcohol or drugs. Some even think that beggars are living large off of handouts, such as Fox News’ John Stossel, who has bravely used his television perch to take on beggars. “I had heard that some people beg for a living and make big bucks — $80,000 a year in some cases,” Stossel told Fox & Friends. “You really shouldn’t give to these street people,” Stossel concluded. “You are really supporting alcoholism and drug problems.” Researchers wanted to test out whether this widely held view of panhandlers as lazy alcoholics getting rich off others was correct. The Union Square Business Improvement District, a collection of 500 property owners in downtown San Francisco, hired GLS Research to survey panhandlers over a two-day period in March. They found that, for the vast majority of beggars, Stossel’s view was simply not true.
Poverty have always been an issue. Still to this day, poverty still is an issue and is not completely eliminated. Seeing many people trying to make a difference and taking action is the exact positivity our world need. From doing things such as creating food banks, homeless shelters, clothing donation to bringing a global community together. Therefore we have been able to learned that poverty is one of the major issues in the world that need to be address quickly in the poorest villages in which thousands of people are dying, and most of these people are children’s. We have learned that poverty refers to the condition of not having the means to afford basic human needs such as clean water, nutrition, healthcare, clothing, food, and a place to live, poverty is a deadly issue that’s killing our population slow and that we as the affected ones need to take actions against it. We have also learned that poverty that affect mostly poor people, because of the little resources they have, this means that poverty is an issue that’s harming poor people that want to get out of poverty, but they can’t because they don’t have the support of rich people. Even though there are a lot of people trying to stop poverty, it is impossible to stop it without the support of rich countries, this is because to fight poverty we have to fight it with a lot of money and their only a few countries that could support us with this need. Something else that we have learned is that poverty today is looking worse than when it first started; millions of kids are living on piles of trash dying of starvation. The reason there are so many people living in poverty is because millions of other people are spending money in things they don’t need. This leads us to the effects of this issue that are deadly illnesses that make people fall and give up on their life, we learned that poverty lead people to abuse of drugs or to abuse of other people. And even though many people support the idea of helping those people who live in poverty, there are also those that don’t support people who are trying to stop poverty. And the most important thing that we have all learned from this research is that poverty can be stop, but to be able to stop it we must all support each other, with no hate or anything that could harm us. So for those that are willing to help don’t help because you feel pressure, do it because you want to and your heart is telling you to do it.
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