123 School Work

political and public provisions of health vs individual behaviour and environment

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  "Despite public and political focus on the provision of health care, this has relatively little impact on the health of New Zealanders compared with environmental, socioeconomic and behavioural factors."
  
  
  
  This essay will discuss the factors that affect the health of individuals in New Zealand including influences that the New Zealand government and public have had on health. Discussed also will be how New Zealanders as individuals have affected their own health through their behaviour, and how much effect socioeconomic status and environment have made on New Zealanders. It will be argued that political and public provisions on health care have the biggest impact on the health of New Zealanders.
  This essay shows how government funded campaigns and subsidised health care have affected New Zealanders health through education and advertising and reduced cost of care.
  
  There are numerous factors that contribute to the health and wellbeing of New Zealanders; disease, nutrition, income, exercise, work environment, pollution, personal behaviours, to name a few. A major problem in New Zealand are diseases related to smoking, such as emphysema, bronchitis, cancers of the lungs, cancer of the throat, and heart disease. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a disease where the lungs progressively lose function, is also the fourth leading cause of death in the developed world, killing 2.9 million a year ("Discovery for Smokers" The New Zealand Herald May 2004). It is also easily prevented, for those that do not smoke the risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is very low if not zero...