Heart disease is one of the significant causes of death in Australia. There are around 43,963 deaths caused in the nation due to the cardiovascular disease. According to a survey, it has found that heart disease kills one Australian in every 12 minutes which shows the danger to the country. Heart disease includes stroke, heart attack, atherosclerosis, cardiomyopathy and many more. In Australia, cardiovascular disease is referred to as most significant health issues which need to control for reducing the burden from the economy. From a survey of 2007, it was recorded that half of the deaths in country were due to the coronary health disease and 8,623 were due to stroke. Along with this, the people who were found to be suffering from this cardiovascular health issue were of age 75 and more. Similarly, in 2011, around 50% of Australian people of age between 65 and 74 found to be suffering from heart disease and 64% of people were of age 74 and more. In addition to it, from the researches it has also been identified that rate of heart disease is higher in male as compare to the female population. Thus, from this it is clear that older people are suffering more from the heart disease in Australia (Roever, Tse & Biondi-Zoccai, 2018).
The increasing health issue of cardiovascular disease among older people is due to their lifestyle. Smoking is one of the biggest causes found to be the reason behind the death of older people via heart attack. According to the survey of 2011-2013, 11% of people suffering from heart disease were between age 65 and 74, 13% of individuals were between age 75 and 84 and at last 18% of people were of age more than 85. The lifestyle of elder people includes alcohol consumption, obesity, smoking, stress and many more which results to increase the chances of causing heart disease. On the other hand, younger generation of the country is found to be healthier due to health conscious nature and adequate lifestyle. Young individuals also include exercise to their daily routine which is minimal among the elder adults. Physical activities like exercise are said to be most effective prevention strategy for the cardiovascular diseases (Wilmot & et.al., 2015).
Cardiovascular disease includes all diseases and situations which possess heart and blood vessels. In 2016, 27% of a male found to be died due to the heart disease in Australia. In the context of the morbidity risks, the male population of age 45 years possesses 49.5% chances of having cardiovascular disease with two or more risk factors. On the other hand, male with no risk factors has only 1.4% chances of having heart disease. On the other side, the mortality from the heart disease is decreasing significantly in the nation. However, despite the reduction in mortality, heart disease is one of the major causes of deaths in Australia. Apart from this, the data of mortality provides most essential indications regarding the growth in improved preventions and treatments of the heart disease in Australia. Decreasing mortality rates are showing either the reduced rate of heart disease or improved survival among the individuals. In contrast to it, morbidity from the cardiovascular health issue can be explained in various ways such as incidence of heart diseases and case-fatality rates. According to the morbidity, around 8.7% of people over age 85 are diagnosed as having heart disease and stroke (Carapetis & et.al., 2016).
The primary social determinant of health is stress. From the various researches and theories, it has been found that chronic stress can result to affect the health of an individual. The pressure can be aforementioned early life, occupational and stress among older people due to family duties, retirement and many more. The stressful situation leads to make individuals feel worried, anxious and unable to cope which leads to damage health and premature death. Major reason behind the stress is lack of control over the work and home which have a powerful impact on the health of the individuals. According to the meta-analysis of the healing studies, there is a healthy relationship between the elevated stress level and slower healing for various type of acute situations. Lakc of emotional resources makes people avoid positive health behavior which leads them to a stressful life. On the other hand, loneliness and social isolation are also significant reasons for creating stress among the older adults which lead to morbidity and heart diseases. Anxiety is quite common among the people with low socioeconomic status, less education, and income which lead to cardiovascular mortality (Jin & et.al., 2017).
Another social determinant of health is life-course perspective. This determinant pays attention to the accumulated effects of the experience across the life. The economic and social conditions which have a cumulative impact on the individuals result to develop various diseases like stroke and heart disease. According to the Hertzman, there are three health effects which have relevance for life-course perspective. These effects are a pathway, cumulative and latent which leads to creating heart disease among the individuals. In contrast to it, access to the health services is a primary social determinant of the health. Companies are offering financial incentives to the workers for screening heart disease, but still, there are some barriers present in the environment. Along with this, bulk billing, physical access based upon the location, opening hours, etc. are the things which affect the entrance to the health services. By analyzing all the social determinants, it is necessary to have public health interventions within the nation. With respect to the access to health services, the government needs to conduct geographical distribution of the pharmacies and their co-location which will lead to improving the physical access. By delivering medication to the people having a disability, the government can provide access (Zühlke & et.al., 2014).
On the other hand, individuals can visit doctors and health trainers for improving their lifestyle and reducing stress from their life. A routine checkup at local pharmacist can help the patient in handling and control the health disease. Along with this, promotion activities can also lead to prevention of the health from heart disease. On the other hand, funding for screening for heart health can result to save the money which would be made via intervening early and decreasing the expenditure on the hospitalizations. With the help of policies and procedures, policy makers can implement the screening methods for controlling the increasing cardiovascular disease in Australia. On the other hand, with the support of advertisement on television, radio, newspapers, etc. government of the nation can help elder adults in improving their lifestyle by leaving the habits of smoking and alcohol consumption (Russell & et.al., 2014).
According to the analysis target population, an i.e. elder adult with age 65 and more is suffering from the issues regarding social gradient of health. In context to this, the connection of the pharmacy heart health screen with the application for Age Pension can be valid. According to the Age Pension which is coordinated by the Department of Social Services, Australian people with more than age 65 can receive their payment. For collecting the pension, people of the nation need to fill all range of forms correctly. People suffering from the health disease need to add additional form while applying for the pension. This will help in offering cardiovascular screening test to the sufferers. A local medical professional can conduct screening test of the elder adults for knowing the actual status of their heart disease and health. The report collected from the health trainer will lead to submission to the department of social services. The described model will help Australian government in addressing the social gradient. Access to the screening will need to be useful and easy without any barrier for people (Nichols & et.al., 2016).
In contrast to it, there are some limitations of the proposed approach. The model does not include those people who have already registered for the pension scheme. In such situation, the government can conduct screening for all the persons having age 65 and more. Implementation of such program can result to reduce the prevalence of the cardiovascular disease by early intervention. The as large population of older people in the nation receives a pension and its connection with the screening of the heart disease will also lead to developing a national database of cardiovascular health (Roever, Tse & Biondi-Zoccai, 2018).
Thus, from the above, it is clear that heart disease is significant cause in Australia behind the increasing death rate. The major reason behind this health issue is stressful life, improper lifestyle, the habit of smoking and alcohol consumption and many more. The major social determinants of health are stress, lack of access to the health services and life-course perspective. With respect to this, linkage of Age Pension program with the cardiovascular screening will help Australian government in reducing the rate of heart diseases among the elder adults. Along with this, the database will assist the government in knowing the actual statistics regarding the heart disease. The collection of information will help in implementing the effective policies and procedures for controlling the heart disease among the people having an age of 65 or more.
REFERENCES
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Jin, K., Neubeck, L., Ding, D., Koo, F., & Gullick, J. (2017). Understanding Coronary Heart Disease Experience Among Chinese Immigrants Living in Australia: A Social-Ecological Analysis.
Nichols, M., Peterson, K., Herbert, J., Alston, L., & Allender, S. (2016). Australian Heart Disease Statistics 2015. National Heart Foundation of Australia.
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Wilmot, K. A., O’flaherty, M., Capewell, S., Ford, E. S., & Vaccarino, V. (2015). Coronary heart disease mortality declines in the United States from 1979 through 2011: evidence for stagnation in young adults, especially women. Circulation, CIRCULATIONAHA-115.
Zühlke, L., Engel, M. E., Karthikeyan, G., Rangarajan, S., Mackie, P., Cupido, B., … & Francis, V. (2014). Characteristics, complications, and gaps in evidence-based interventions in rheumatic heart disease: the Global Rheumatic Heart Disease Registry (the REMEDY study). European heart journal, 36(18), 1115-1122.
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