Globalisation's Impact on Health

Introduction

In the recent era of globalisation, the countries across the globe face several health problems, where the individuals are suffering from different disease and it is important for the health and social care organisations to develop good health care intervention planning to support the people across different social communities worldwide (Moussaoui, Bhavsar and Bhugra, 2021). The aim of the report is to identify the major health problems, faced by the individuals across the social communities, due to the effective of globalisation, where migration of people from one place to another, advertisement of low quality products in the market and high calorie products consumption further raise the issues related to health and wellbeing. The major health problems in the recent era of globalisation are such as spread of infectious diseases, obesity and overweight, tobacco, mental health, substance uses, physical inactivity, lack of nutrition and injury and violence among the individuals, for which the people are suffering from lack of quality of life. Through the report, it is possible to identify different cases related to the health problems, which are rising over the period of years due to globalisation. The case studies will be represented to develop clear ideas about the health problems and its impacts on the region or country as well as analyse its effects on the individual health and wellbeing. The report is also beneficial to identify the globalisation activities and impacts of globalisation on health problems as well as develop suitable recommendations for the health care institution to support the communities with high quality health and social care services, so that the individuals can maximise their standard of living by getting effective treatment and continuous support.

Globalization and Global health

Globalisation is the process by which the world is becoming increasingly interconnected as a result of massively increased trade and cultural exchange. Globalisation has increased the production of goods and services and it enhances the international trade activities, volume of export and important successfully. Globalisation refers to growing interdependence of the world economies, cultures and populations (Dilger and Mattes, 2018). It is about the cross border trade in goods and services, technology and flows of investment, information and people across the globe. The flow of people further enhances the cultural exchange as well as there is technological flow and movement of investment activities across the international markets. Globalisation has critical impacts on the global health where the health related issues are increasing over the period of time. The major health related problems due to globalisation include tobacco, alcohol use, substance use and global epidemics of non-communicable diseases. In the recent decades, the public health policies and practise have been increasingly challenged by globalisation even if the global financial position for health has increased dramatically. There is increasing emphasis on the global flows including the pathogens, information and technological flows, trade and finance as well as people, which further raises challenges for the public health in the recent years (Birn, Pillay and Holtz, 2017). Globalised disease and economic vulnerabilities are the major causes of globalisation which further raise the problems in public health, where the people are suffering from health and mental issues, leading to deterioration of the wellbeing and standard of living of the individuals. Globalisation is hereby one of the crucial factors that enhance international trade and transfer of quality goods and services, as well as movement of people, information and process. However, it has some adverse impacts on the society, mainly public health where the individuals may suffer from serious health and mental issues.

Global health is considered as the health condition of the populations in the global context where health and wellbeing of the individuals across the social communities are analysed across the globe. In this regard, global health focuses on health care in an international and interdisciplinary context which includes in depth research and practice of medicine with the aim of improving health and wellbeing of the individuals (Forster et al., 2020). The health and social care professionals focus on maximising the quality of life through delivering high quality treatment and care to the individuals and thus the care givers focus on the global health issues and develop intervention planning for effective treatment and continuous care of the social communities across the globe. The major purpose of global health is to improve the health for all the people in all the nations by promoting wellbeing and eliminating avoidable disease, disability and death. It can be attained by combining population based health promotion and disease prevention measures with individual care and treatment (McInnes and Roemer-Mahler, 2017). Hence, global health care management is one of the main focuses on the health care authority to maximise the standard of living of the individuals across the international nations in order to maintain quality of life and improve physical and mental health of the individuals. The health and social care professionals face difficulties in managing the quality standard of the health and social care for which they sometime fail to provide high quality care and treatment to the individuals across the world.

In this regard, as per the World Health organisation or WHO and Care Quality Commission or CQC, the major global health problems are such as Using tobacco, substance Abuse, HIV/AIDS, issue related to mental Health, injury and violence, environmental quality, immunization and lack of access to Health Care, for which the quality of life of the individuals are hampered worldwide (Fox, Feng and Asal, 2019). The health and social care professional face difficulties to manage the quality of health among the individuals due to lack of environmental protection, bad lifestyle and movement of people which are major causes of globalisation. Hence, globalization has direct impacts on the health and wellbeing of the individuals, where there are adverse impacts of globalisation on the global health worldwide. It is one of the major concern among the health and social care authorities to maintain quality of life by providing suitable and safe environment to stay healthily, but due to globalisation, it becomes difficult for the authority to protect standard of living and reduce the global health issues such as lack of immunization, hygiene issues, overweight and obesity, mental health, violence and injury and substance uses (Burlacu, Gutu and Matei, 2018). These are the major global health problems for which the health and social care providers fail to support the social communities with adequate care and quality treatment. Globalisation is one of the major reasons which enhance the transfer of technology and process, movement of people and other global flows raise diver impacts directly or indirectly on global health (Khanal et al., 2020). It is essential to identify the evidences and facts of global health issues, so that it would be possible to analyse the global health problems and develop solutions through intervention planning to maximise public health in long run.

Theories of globalisation and its impacts

Theory of globalisation is important to be understood to analyse its impacts on the human being, human health, individual habit and social activities. The theory of liberalism is the process of globalisation as market led extension of modernisation where the market expansion is conducted with the aim of economic welfare and political liberty. The human drives try to maximise the material wellbeing and exercise freedom in the society across the globe. The activities of liberalism further enhance the institutional infrastructure to support globalisation which leads to technological standardisation, administrative harmonisation, and translation arrangement between cultures, laws of contract and guarantees of property rights. The legal and institutional arrangement enables the markets for international trade and transfer of goods and services across the international countries (Khanal et al., 2020). Theory of Marxism is also effective to understand globalisation process, where it emphasises on production, social exploitation through unjust distribution and social anticipation through transcendence if capitalism. According to Marxist economics, globalisation happens because of world connectivity which enhances opportunities of profit making and surplus accumulation. Through increasing the production and manufacturing activities and open market, it is possible for the organisations to generate revenue and maximise profitability for better market expansion and international trade. Transfer of technologies further improves communication, technical infrastructure and process generation, where the multinational corporations try to produce the quality products and services for the customers (Steger and James, 2019). It further enhances the international trade activities and transfer of labour from one country to another. These are the major activities which lead to globalisation across the international markets, where the organisations play crucial role to improve connectivity among the individuals across different social communities and enhance the market activities in long run.

Globalisation in this regard has significant impacts on health and social care sector worldwide, both positive and negative. Increased pathogen flows are one of the crucial impacts of globalisation where there is high volume of spread of pathogens (Steger and James, 2019). The public health community and the spark for new International Health Regulations and multilateral health collaborations are working collaboratively in this era of globalisation to mitigate such negative impacts of globalisation. For example, in 1990s, global trade, another ancient vector of disease, poses other health risks, from the spread of pests to that of pestilence raise the issue of infected bilge waters which cause Latin America Cholera pandemic. On the other hand, there are other health issues related to communicable diseases, HIV/AIDS and other issues related to spread of infection for movement of people from one country to another. This is one of the major health problems in this era of globalisation which is required to be analysed and mitigated through intervention. On the other hand, globalisation enhances the information flow and trade flows (Steger and James, 2019). Advances of computer and technologies are helpful to reshape the health and social care activities in this modern era where increased spread of knowledge of health care, technological innovation and reach of multinational firms, pharmaceutical companies raise social movement. This is considered as one of the major positive impacts of globalisation, where the health industry becomes advanced with latest treatment, health care equipment and quality care. The high income countries such as UK and USA are connected with latest treatment and research program to develop medicine and create new health care equipment or quality care. On the other hand, information flow, knowledge gaining activities for the health care professionals are also the effects of globalisation (Prashantham, Eranova and Couper, 2018).

Increased trade volume is another effect of globalisation, where the increasing production of goods and services further improves the volume of export and import cross the international markets. The economic integration further create thee new source of wealth and health and the production and exchange pattern are also conducted under systematic way along with the labour market changes, wealth accumulation, employment and profit generation. However, with the increasing trade volume, there are other issues related to the increased trade flows which are insufficient health and safety protections, environmental degradation, over utilisation of the natural resources, unemployment, increasing the numbers of workers in the society, lack of job security and employment insecurities which deteriorate the quality of life among the individuals (Sawleshwarkar and Negin, 2017). It has also health impacts on the individuals where the people are not feeling safe in working in the organisation without health and safety benefits. Employment insecurity and lack of employment legislations further increase mental illness and work pressure among the individuals. Hence, globalisation in this way raises the issue of environmental degradation, lack of safe environment and mental illness among the social communities worldwide. The financial flow is another major effect of globalisation, which raise foreign direct investment (FDI) and outsourced contract production across national borders in the process of creating global labour market. Another important impact of globalisation is increasing people movement from one country to another for getting greater opportunity to brighten future (Prashantham, Eranova and Couper, 2018). However, it has consequences on the public health where the communicable diseases, spread of infectious disease, hygiene risk are rising over the period of time. Hence, there are several risk factors associated with the public health which deteriorate the quality of life of the individuals worldwide.

Case studies of impacts of globalisation on health problems

The major health problems associated with globalisation are obesity, increasing substance usage and mental illness. The individuals are facing from diverse health issues related to physical and mental health, where there are crucial impacts of globalisation on the public health. Hence, further analysis and evaluation will be represented for understanding the impacts of globalisation on the global health problems across the international nations.

Obesity

Obesity is one of the major issues in the recent era of globalisation, where the people across the globe are facing threats related to the diseases of obesity. Obesity raises the blood sugar level, cholesterol, heart related issues, high blood pressure and other chronic disease, where the quality of life of the individuals is hampered (Brewis, SturtzSreetharan and Wutich, 2018). In the recent era of globalisation, the transfer of technology and maximising the production of diverse food products and services are increasing over the years, where this attracts more audiences and influence their purchase decision for the unhygienic and unhealthy food items in the market. advertisement for the unhealthy and high calorie products in the market are also increasing through television and social media which also attract the individuals to make purchase decision for the high calorie, high sugar and unhealthy products. Among the teenagers, the percentage of obesity is also increasing which becomes a serious concern for the government and health authority to protect the social communities for such global health problem. Due to high advertisement activities in the market for the unhealthy and sugar content products in the market, lack of health campaign and raising awareness in the market, the percentage of obese people in the society worldwide is increasing at a rapid rate. On the other hand, recently the healthy diet practice has also been deteriorated among the individuals, where the people are living fast life style and enjoy having unhealthy products, beverages, sugar content and high calorie food items as well as packaged products, whose advertisement in the market is also increasing rapidly. Hence, the issue of obesity among the people across the social communities becomes a serious global health problem for which the individuals are suffering from several diseases leading to deterioration of the standard of life.

As per the figure above, it has been seen that, over the period of time, the rate obesity among the individuals across different countries around the globe is increasing significantly, and it has also be explored that, the rise in obesity is seen mostly among the women as compared to men. Asia and African countries as well as the USA and UK also have high rate of obesity and in the recent years, it is increasing rapidly. In 2020, 83% of men and 72% of women will be overweight or obese. Nauru has the highest rate of obesity and globalisation is paying a crucial role in raising the health problem among the individuals worldwide. Hence, as per the analysis, there is a positive correlation between globalisation and obesity as over the period of time, the arte of obesity among the individuals is increasing rapidly (Pavli and Maltezou, 2017). The major reasons of such global health issue of obesity are such as high consumption of unhealthy food items. Packaged food, sweet content food and beverages, where the individuals mainly the teenagers are attracted to consume the food. There is lack of healthy dietary food habits among the individuals in the recent years, where everybody is living in a busy schedule and they try to consume the ready to cook food or packaged food item. On the other hand, increasing numbers of reduction of the diverse food products and advertisement of the unhealthy and high sugar content food is the major reason of such global health problem. For example, the nutrition transition in low- and middle-income countries towards the shift to a high-energy diet (containing animal protein, saturated fats, sugars, and highly processed food) and higher levels of inactivity in the society leads to obesity among the individuals.

As per the graph above, then government take immediate actions to tackle the global health problem of obesity, and the data reveals that there is huge investment for mitigating the issue of obesity in the country. As per the findings, 36% people in the USA are suffering from obesity and on the other had more than 27% individual sin the UK are obese. Hence, the study reveals that the government and the health authority of the countries are taking immediate intervention and arrange capital fund to raise awareness related to the issue of obesity and support the patients with suitable care and treatment (Mormina and Pinder, 2018).

Substance abuse

The increasing numbers of individuals using substance is another major global health problem, where the individuals are suffering from substance uses. There is increasing numbers of make members who become addicted towards tobacco, alcohol and drugs. Globalisation has several impacts on this particular health problem in the society. Due to high production of the drugs and alcohol, the individuals across the social communities have access to purchase the products for substance uses (King and Koski, 2020). In addition to this, there are some international countries, from where the dealers try to import the substances and the business activities related to drug supply and alcohol supply become growing over the period of time. The availability of the products in the market due to international trade is increasing which further increases the access of the individuals to purchase the products and use the substances for their addiction.

As per the figure above, the global death rate for tobacco, alcohol and illicit drug uses is increasing over the years where globalisation is one of the critical factors for the health issue. The health condition for the individuals becomes deteriorated and the use of substance further hampers the brand development and social skill for the individuals. The people become addicted and their wellbeing is also deteriorated over the period of time due to substance use and addiction. There are also other health impacts such as liver and kidney failure, malfunction of internal body organs and heart related disease which further hampers the standard of living condition of the individuals (Clinton and Sridhar, 2017). Hence, it is a serious issue for the policy makers and health care authority to protect the individuals, mainly the teenagers who are the future generation of the earth, so that it would be possible to reduce the death rate due to substance use in the social communities across the globe.

Mental health

The issue of mental health is another major health problem across the globe and in the recent era of globalisation, there are increasing numbers of individuals, who are suffering form mental illness, due to material deprivation, psychological stress, unhealthy lifestyles, inequality and lack of social cohesion, and technical (i.e., medical) progress. Economic vulnerability is one of the major causes of mental illness where in the recent globalisation era; there is inequality in income distribution and access in opportunity in the society (Hernando-Amado et al., 2019). There is also lack of job opportunities which raise the issue of unemployment in the recent years, due to huge talent pool and lack of opportunities for the employees for automation process and technological advancement. In the globalisation era, there is digitalisation of the organisations through technological advancement, and the entrepreneurs try to conduct labour retrenchment for develop the automation process in the organisation (Aguirre, 2017). The production and manufacturing activities in the economy is growing over the period of time which raises GDP of different countries but digitalisation of the organisational operations and technical infrastructure for auto-generated process reduces the requirements of the labour, hence there is contraction of the labour intensive sector and expansion of the technology intensive sector across the globe, which raise the issue of unemployment (Yang et al., 2020). It is one of the major problems among the job seekers which hamper their mental health, increases stress, anxiety and depression.

Hence, the percentage of individuals, suffering from mental health illness is increasing rapidly across the international countries. For example, 8 in 100 individuals in the UK are suffering from anxiety, stress and depression and anxiety and depression are the common mental health issues in the UK and other countries. Hence, it becomes a serious health problem worldwide which also needs to be mitigated with government intervention and planning. In addition to this, globalisation enhances the activities of production and supply of goods and services through technological innovation, however, the corporate leaders cannot manage the human resources and there is lack of employment rules and practices for which the employees are not satisfied with their job condition (McInnes and Roemer-Mahler, 2017). Lower wages and lack of flexible working arrangements are the major issues for which the employees are also feeling depressed and their quality of life has been deteriorated. It can also be explored that, the government and health authority promote mental health through counselling and group discussion session, as well as there are several social care and rehabilitation centre for mitigating the issue of mental health in the society (Aguirre, 2017).

Conclusion

It can be concluded that, globalisation has both positive and negative impacts on health and social care industry. Globalisation enhances the pace of business, service sector and health industry through innovation and technological advancement, where transfer of skill, services, technology and people are beneficial for the industries to operate efficiently in the market and fulfil the objectives of the business. There are also economic growth and social development in the recent era of globalisation as well as the health and social care sector is also growing with latest treatment, quality care and technological innovation for digital database management system. The online activities in the health care are the latest innovation for patients care. However, there are global health problems, which are obesity, substance uses and mental illness, which are increasing rapidly among the individuals across the different social communities. Hence, it becomes high concern about the government of the countries and health authorities across the international borders to take immediate actions to tackle the health issues and protect the individuals successfully. Globalisation activities raise the percentage of individuals, suffering from obesity, and as per the analysis, UK and USA as well as Asia pacific countries have high percentage of obese people, and thus it is necessary to manage obesity and raise social concern among the individuals across the international borders. Along with it, the percentage of individuals who are suffering from substance issues and addiction is also increasing over the period of time, as well as there are huge numbers of population, who are facing difficulties for their mental illness, due to work pressure, lack of job opportunities, income inequality, poverty and unemployment. Hence, it is a serious concern among the government and health authorities to develop intervention planning for tackling the global health problems.

Recommendations

The government of the international countries must arrange social campaigning to raise concern about the impacts of obesity among the individuals where their quality of life has been deteriorated. Through sharing the information about obesity and increasing the activities such as exercising on a daily basis, healthy eating habits and dietary planning are necessary to be implemented in the society. The government needs to provide the institution for daily activities and exercises for encouraging the people in the locality. Apart from that, it is necessary to ban the advertisement of unhealthy products in the society.

For mitigating the issue of substance use, the government must provide rehabilitation centre and continuous support to the individuals. Moreover, advertisement of the tobacco related products and other substances must be banned. The export and important volume are also necessary to be restricted in the country to stop the dealing of the substances.

For mitigating the health problem of the mental illness, it is necessary to provide counselling session to the individuals across the society, as well as raise concern about mental health through creating social campaign. Providing the chance of participating in the social activities and access to the treatment and quality care for mental illness are the major intervention plan to reduce the percentage of the individuals suffering from mental illness.

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