The Significance of the Harmful Use of Alcohol as a Health Issue in Western NSW

Discuss about the Health and Society for Harmful Use of Alcohol as a Health Issue.

This assignment gives a detailed information about the social health determinants and their effect on the health outcomes across the Western NSW. The government of Australia has established various Primary Health Networks in its attempt to help the frontline health services including Western NSW Primary Health Network. The Network aims to make the primary health care more effective by working with various hospitals, Local Health District and the community in general. Alcohol abuse is currently one of the major health issues in NSW. 

The significance of the Harmful use of alcohol as a health issue in Western NSW?

Between the year 2015 and 2016, the percentage of adults reported to live with good health in NSW ranged between 80.5% in Gippsland to 89.9% in Eastern Melbourne. Alcohol abuse is a common problem especially among the youths living in New South Wales (Bennett, P et al, 2013, 168). Within the same period, the NSW overnight hospitals for drug and alcohol registered about 32 people suffering from the harmful use of alcohol in Western Queensland for every 10,000 people and around 10 in the North Western Melbourne. The age in this research was standardized across the Western NSW Primary Health Network areas.

The harmful use of alcohol in NSW has affected about 33% of the youths. As the youths pick on their life responsibilities, they indulge in several fun activities of alcohol abuse and some cases this goes to a level of addiction. This turns against their health and the Australian health status in general. With more youths getting affected by alcohol abuse, the future of the society is threatened. The lifespan of the people living in the NSW Primary Health Network has dropped to 77 years with most alcoholic addicts’ not even living half of it. The poverty level has also increased due to the decreasing labor forces in NSW and desperation among the youths and people living in Australia.

The relationship between harmful uses of alcohol and the Australian National Health Priorities.

The National Health Priority Areas (NHPA) is a list of the health conditions or diseases that have been selected by the Commonwealth Government as the main improvement areas to focus on. The initiative by the NHPA has involved various stakeholders including the private sector, government and non-government organizations to minimize this burden that comes up due to these conditions (Whiteford, et al, 2013 p.1582). To achieve this, the Commonwealth government identified nine key health areas to focus on.

The Relationship Between Harmful Uses of Alcohol and the Australian National Health Priorities

The harmful use of alcohol contributes a big part of poor mental health, Cancer, Injury, Diabetes and obesity to some extents (Judd, et al, 2013, p.257).  In the brain, alcohol affects the communication pathways thus interfering with the brains normal look and working state. These mental disruptions have been seen to change the mood, deteriorate the thinking and coordination ability of the affected individuals (Hart, et al, 2017, p.234). Heavy drinking may lead to liver problems and inflammations such as Fibrosis, Alcoholic hepatitis, fatty liver, and cancer. There are high-risk chances of developing cancers of the mouth, breast, esophagus, throat, and liver due to excessive alcohol. On another perspective, the immune system of the body is weakened by excessive consumption of alcohol which makes it an easier target for diseases. Chronic drinkers are prone to diseases and injuries. According to the Australian government, 33 % of the accidents witnessed in Australia is due to drinking. The harmful use of alcohol has attracted heavy financial cost to the society. As seen above, the control and prevention of the harmful alcohol use will lead a shorter way to NHPAs fulfillment. It will help to minimize the cost of diseases hence saving on the personal and country’s financial budget. In 2012 and 2013, Australia spent about 147 billion dollars in the health care alone. Thus by achieving the severity and prevalence reduction of this condition, the money used to curb this condition can be used for other purposes. 

On the Injury Prevention and Control area of health priority, the injury is defined as any adverse effect on the human body due to accidents, poisoning, car crashes, drowning, violence or suicide (Mitchell, 2016 p.9). Most of the injuries experienced in Australia such as interpersonal violence, in work settings, car crashes were associated with the harmful use of alcohol. Self-harm, Suicide thoughts and road crashes are seen more in young people and drank people. On controlling the excessive consumption of alcohol, injuries related to drinking and their impacts on both the individuals and the community are minimized. The chances of getting cancer which is the uncontrolled growth and mutation of cells threatening the body parts are associated with the excessive alcohol consumption (Crowe, 2013, 2). The human body continually produces new cells as a replacement to the old and nonfunctioning cells in its efforts to maintain the body health. The abnormal growth of these cells may lead to the development of a turmoil which invades the surrounding tissues thus interruption their normal functioning. The growth of this turmoil may even lead to secondary cancers in extreme cases. In the past years, cancer has caused the highest number of deaths in Australia. In 2012, 29 percent of the deaths registered was due to cancer. Over 18,463 females and 23,994 males died of cancer (Stewart et al, 2017).

The Relationship Between the Harmful Alcohol Use and Social Determinants of Health

The NHPA focuses to prevent cancer through early detection and effective treatment. The treatment of cancer is expensive, it accounts for about 6 percent of the government health system expenditures (Mason, 2013). Cancer alone contributes the highest burden of disease with huge costs to specific individuals and the community at large.  The NHPA has founded a health promotion program that aims to enlighten the people to control their lifestyles by drinking responsibly. The program works with the community groups to ensure that their alcohol control practices and policies are working effectively and sustainably. In addition, the programs use deep research and evidence to guide the activities. Mental disorders in Australia is also another alarming health issue on the NHPA focus (Hermens, et al., 2013, 6). Most of the mental illnesses like madness are caused by alcohol abuse. The health requirements and living standards of these people heavily cost the society. 

The Relationship Between the Harmful Alcohol use and Social Determinants of Health

These are the environmental surroundings around people’s lives and include, age, work, and lifestyle that influences health, quality of life and outcomes (Kaner, 2013, p.254).

Too much of wealth and luxury is likely to create alcoholic vices in a person. Similarly, low-level incomes may lead to one adopting the drinking habit as a relief to the recurring financial and social responsibilities.

People who are socially excluded are likely to consume excessive alcohol which makes them zombies. About 60 percent of the people who drink do it as an excuse to overcome their stress. In the end, this turns to habit and consequently to a health degradation. When one is not earning enough money to make the ends meet, a person may lose hope and start seeking relief from alcohol.

The highest percentage of the people affected by the harmful use of alcohol are youths. About 19 percent of the young people between the ages of 18 to 40 in NSW are struggling with alcoholism. 

The excessive use of alcohol is a disease that takes a life on its own. As the problem develops the ability of an individual to exert self-control and make sound decisions is impaired. Most of the alcoholics start as a voluntary decision and later becomes a big health issue to deal with. Prevention is the best form of nursing intervention to end the harmful use of alcohol.

Parental monitoring with nurse intervention support plays a great role in solving the alcoholism condition.  Most of the alcoholics in New South Wales started at the age of 15 years. At this age, the person is under the parent’s responsibility. According to the Australian Council of Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, most of the people who start taking alcohol at the age of 15 have higher chances of developing alcoholism as compared to individuals who start drinking at 21 years. The parents need to enforce strict rules against the use of alcohol to their children. The parents can minimize the risks by holding timely talks about the harmful effects alcoholism. According to the Australian drug and abuse health research, children with good parental support and relationships have fewer chances of abusing alcohol. The Primary Health Networks should adopt this alcoholism control measures by directly involving the NSW parents in the “Control Alcohol campaigns”.

Steps to Control and Prevent Alcoholism in Western NSW

Alcoholic nursing intervention is needed at the early stages of alcohol abuse. At one point the family and friends may feel that their loved one is developing a drinking problem (Saunders et al, 2013 p.354). The family should not wait until it’s too late to intervene. An interventionist should be called to help the victim solve the problem. For daily drinkers, the interventionist guides the victim on other harmless activities to forget their previous habit (O’donnell, 2013, 69) This form of nursing intervention is strong in that, it helps the victim to undertake a step by step process of recovery without the change. On the other side, the intervention may consume so much time and some victims may lose hope in the process. Also, some of the victims may view that family or friends concern to be invading into their personal space and they end up raising hatred against them.

The Australian Government is working through established Primary Health Networks who are works with the Local District Health and the community as well to curb this alcoholism health problem.  The plan provides an excellent coverage of the country with minimum costs.

The social health determinants keeps on changing with time. NSW needs a timely health analyses plan to determine the personal leads to harmful use of alcohol.

The Primary Health Networks should start community awareness programs to ensure everyone living in NSW is conversant with the harmful effects of alcohol. Online social platforms should be used to promote the health awareness. 

The plan to minimize alcoholism may receive oppositions from the people making money out of it. The health networks may require training of more experts in that field to effectively cover the alcoholism issue in that area.

Conclusion

The above interventions are beneficial to the community in that; the process will help to raise self-recognized people and secondly, they will reduce the community costs incurred in the treatment and management of the alcoholics. Finally, the intervention will highly reduce the hopelessness in the society thus improving the community social and economic welfare. Most of the funds that were previously channeled towards the harmful use of alcohol will be used in other development areas. 

References

Bennett, P., Jones, D., Brown, J. and Barlow, V., 2013. Supporting rural/remote primary health care placement experiences increases undergraduate nurse confidence. Nurse Education Today, 33(2), pp.166-172.

Crowe, T., 2013. Reducing the risk of cancer by healthy food choices and physical activity. Nutridate, 24(1), p.2.

Hart, C.R., Berry, H.L. and Tonna, A.M., 2017. Improving the mental health of rural New South Wales communities facing drought and other adversities. Australian Journal of Rural Health, 19(5), pp.231-238.

Hermens, D.F., Lagopoulos, J., Tobias-Webb, J., De Regt, T., Dore, G., Juckes, L., Latt, N. and

Hickie, I.B., 2013. Pathways to alcohol-induced brain impairment in young people: a review. Cortex, 49(1), pp.3-17.

Judd, F.K. and Humphreys, J.S., 2013. Mental health issues for rural and remote Australia. Australian Journal of Rural Health, 9(5), pp.254-258.

Kaner, E., Bland, M., Cassidy, P., Coulton, S., Dale, V., Deluca, P., Gilvarry, E., Godfrey, C., Heather, N., Myles, J. and Newbury-Birch, D., 2013. Effectiveness of screening and brief alcohol intervention in primary care (SIPS trial): pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial. Bmj, 346, p.e8501.

Mitchell, R. and McClure, R., 2016. The development of national injury prevention policy in the

Australian health sector: and the unmet challenges of participation and implementation. Australia and New Zealand health policy, 3(1), p.11.

Mason, J., 2013. Review of Australian government health workforce programs.

O’donnell, A., Anderson, P., Newbury-Birch, D., Schulte, B., Schmidt, C., Reimer, J. and Kaner,

E., 2013. The impact of brief alcohol interventions in primary healthcare: a systematic review of reviews. Alcohol and alcoholism, 49(1), pp.66-78.

Saunders, J.B., Aasland, O.G., Amundsen, A. and Grant, M., 2013. Alcohol consumption and related problems among primary health care patients: WHO collaborative project on early detection of persons with harmful alcohol consumption—I. Addiction, 88(3), pp.349-362.

Stewart, B.W.K.P. and Wild, C.P., 2017. World cancer report 2014. Health.

Whiteford, H.A., Degenhardt, L., Rehm, J., Baxter, A.J., Ferrari, A.J., Erskine, H.E., Charlson,

F.J., Norman, R.E., Flaxman, A.D., Johns, N. and Burstein, R., 2013. Global burden of diseases attributable to mental and substance use disorders: findings from the Global Burden of Disease

Study 2010. The Lancet, 382(9904), pp.1575-1586.