Читать книгу Contemporary Health Studies - Louise Warwick-Booth - Страница 65

Other factors that can influence what issues are seen as threats to health are the number of people affected and the seriousness of the threat. Large and visible dangers tend to receive more attention and are therefore more likely to be categorized as threats to health. For example, GPs in the UK saw influenza-like symptoms in 19.4 of every 100,000 registered patients in the week leading up to 29 December 2019, but two weeks previously they only saw such symptoms in 13.1 per 100,000 (Merrifield, 2020). The recent global pandemic of coronavirus (COVID-19) was the most serious infectious disease experienced in a hundred years because of its magnitude. Pandemics can be classified as stronger threats because of their scope being across continents and the world. Notions of mortality (death), morbidity (burden of diseases), impact on quality of life and chronic and acute disease can also be brought to bear on how threats are conceptualized. For example head lice incidence rates within the UK are suggested to be increasing following on from government policy changes, in which GPs are no longer able to prescribe treatments (Ferguson, 2018), and they affect children across the world; but very few people would suggest that head lice are a major threat to health, as they do not lead to death. Whereas HIV-related illness does lead to death, has high incidence rates, is associated with stigma and discrimination, results in reductions in quality of life and is therefore a significant contemporary threat to public health, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

However, conceptualizing health threats using this approach can mean that marginalized sub-populations or hidden health issues can be neglected. Issues that are perceived by society as stigmatized or shameful can go under-reported, under-investigated and unrecognized; for example, disability.