Urbanisation and Social Drift-Double-edged sword for cardiac ailments: Dr Sushil
STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: With fast pace of social drift in population and urbanization with each passing day and its detrimental effect on cardiac health Head Department of cardiology GMCH Jammu, Dr Sushil Sharma held a day long Cardiac awareness cum health Check up camp in collaboration with Dogra Brahmin Pratinidhi Sabha, Parade Jammu on the occasion of Maharishi Parshuram Jayanti celebrations with the aim to screen high risk cardiac patients and to disseminate the information regarding primary prevention of cardiovascular diseases by adopting healthy and cardiac friendly lifestyle.
More than 250 people were screened, evaluated, diagnosed and free medicines were given as per the requirements.
While interacting with the patient, Dr Sushil Sharma stated that the disease burden caused by CVD is a serious public health problem and it is suggested that this growing disease burden is driven by social macro factors such as urbanisation and ageing.
These changes in lifestyle and behaviour may affect CVD risk factors including hypertension diabetes, dyslipidemia, obesity and physical activity. Previous studies confirmed that urbanisation is a double-edged sword for health.
Urbanisation offers health benefits including access to services and education, higher incomes and living conditions. However, it also poses risks, such as pollution, transition to Western-style diets and sedentary lifestyles. Changes in CVD risk are easily influenced by social determinants, such as socioeconomic status (SES) and residential environments. In different stages of urbanisation, CVD risks level could be distinct since risk response capacity varies among urbanised residents with different SES. In addition, whether residential environments characterised by increased socioeconomic resources, access to healthy foods and more resources for physical activity have a measurable effect on CVD and the density of CVD risk factors is also worth exploring. He further maintained that If, on the one hand, the exposure to CVD risk factors is more intense in urbanized areas, on the other hand, it ensures greater access to health services. Thus, greater contact with cities enables the early diagnosis of diseases. These differences between urban and rural areas also reflect the access to health services by the populations. In the case of indigenous populations, this problem is in part mitigated by the existence of a specific subsystem for basic health care.
Tackling these issues requires a multi-stakeholder approach: by working together we can improve health education, strengthen healthcare and fight industry tactics, to address the world’s number one killer. The rise of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) in developing countries has been linked to progressive urbanization .Cross-sectional studies on comparisons of urban and rural areas have demonstrated higher rates of CVD risk factors for urban individuals.
However, this comparison only suggests that the urban population is at higher risk of CVD, but does not give insights as to how these risks develop over time, he added.
Management Committee of Dogra Brahmin Pratinidhi Sabha Ved Prakash Sharma, Jagan Nath Sharma, Subhash Shastri, M.L Padha, Bareet Ram, Ramesh Sharma, Ritiz Khajuria, Jagdish Dogra, Vijay Sharma and Raman Sharma appreciated the efforts of Dr Sushil and his team for conducting cardiac awareness cum health check up Camp on Birthday celebrations events of Bhagwan Parshuram. Others who were part of this camp includes Dr S K Bali (Nephrologist), Dr Kewal Sharma, Dr Imran and Dr Barkat. Paramedics and volunteers includes Raghav Rajput, Rajkumar, Rajinder Singh, Mukesh Kumar, Gourav Sharma, Akshay Kumar, Jatin Bhasin, Pankaj Kerni, Jamshed Ali, Vikas Kumar, Sandeep Pal, Hridanshu Kohli, Arjun Ghuman, Vinay Kumar and Ashish Talwar.
