Example research essay topic: Males And Females Men And Women - 1,091 words

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Women's Health and Tropical Diseases: A focus on Africa Over one-quarter of the world's population are at risk from parasitic infections and the majority of these infections are confined to the world's poverty belt of the tropics and sub-tropics -- largely in Sub-Saharan Africa. Women constitute nearly 67 per cent of the total population of Africa, and to achieve better global health condition, a focus on African women is thus necessary. Low income levels are associated with debilitating disease patterns. Thirty-eight of the world's 63 low-income countries are in Africa. Of its 500 million people, 40 per cent have less than US$ 1 a day to live on, 68 per cent have no proper sanitation and 52 per cent no access to safe water (Lancet, 1997). In a recent WHO report, analysis of the poverty data (UNDP 1994) illustrates the role of poverty in co-determining the health status of the populations (WHO/TF/HE/TBN/ 97).

The report referred to above concludes that "levels of both total and rural absolute poverty" are substantially higher in the ten low performers (countries with highest negative deviation from estimated life expectancy) compared to ten high performers (countries with the highest positive deviation from estimated life expectancy). Interestingly, nine out of ten are in Africa. Of all geographic regions, Africa has the highest tropical diseases morbidity and mortality ratios (Sai and Nassim 1991). Efficient services and special effort by health providers is needed to enhance the health status of populations in this region.

Planning for health services, improving the efficiency and engendering services in any country depends primarily on information about the main causes of ill-health and death in defined areas. Data on cause-specific mortality and morbidity, in particular, data disaggregated by gender and sex crucial for effective planning are scanty for most countries in sub-Saharan Africa (Heggengougen 1996). Gaining solid and longitudinal understanding across the life span based on reliable, consistent and quality data has been re-echoed as perhaps the first action for tackling major causes of ill-health (Stephens 1996). Given the paucity of data available to health planners in Africa, the question to ask is - can program planners achieve a reform of the health sector and or improve it? Do we have data to show where services are required?

And can services and human resources be made available where they are most needed but nonexistent? Tropical diseases are to a large extent poverty-borne diseases. It has been estimated that half a billion people are suffering from tropical diseases -malaria, schistosomiasis, African trypanosomiasis, chagas disease, Leishmania (Kala Azar) and leprosy (WHO, 1993) and that a high proportion of this population live in sub-Saharan Africa. Tropical diseases produce large burdens of disability and some act synergistically with some non-parasitic diseases to produce severe disability sometimes leading to death. Equally important is the focus on parasitic and infectious diseases.

In the last decade, especially with the advent of AIDS, information on STDs, HIV, teenage pregnancies is becoming more available, but data on tropical diseases some with lifelong impact on health and economic development remains ambiguous. In the absence of a vaccine or a 'magic bullet' for the treatment of tropical diseases like malaria and with increasing travel from non-endemic to endemic countries malaria, will become a huge problem to developed countries. Already an increasing number of imported cases including strains resistant to available drugs are being reported (Globe and Mail, 1997). The Health of Women and Tropical Diseases As Heggenhougen (1994) aptly notes "a Sub-Saharan female has a dramatically poorer chance of survival relative to her developed-world sister than does a Sub-Saharan male compared with his developed-world brother." With many tropical diseases (malaria, onchocerciasis, trypanosomiasis), exposure to the bites of infective vectors is closely related to work patterns of males and females, to individual and community behaviour (Robert, 1963) and is central to transmission. Until recently, the theory has been that because males assumed the greatest responsibility for farm labour, their exposure and infection rates would be considerably greater than those of the female members of the family. Historical changes in economic and agricultural roles of men and women leave women with the major responsibility for subsistence farming (Okonjo, 1988) and family welfare.

Adolescent and adult females in Africa now make the greatest contribution to agricultural production (FAO, 1984). These changes in roles have increased exposure of females to infective bites of flies which transmit tropical diseases and increase their role in the transmission of diseases. In a recent review, Amazigo (1994) observed that certain health conditions and problems associated with the highly prevalent tropical infectious diseases (e. g malaria, schistosomiasis) are shared by males and females at almost equal prevalence rates but they have each particularly serious consequences for females because of their reproductive functions. These problems exacerbate risk during pregnancy and childbirth. A few tropical infectious diseases cause gross disfigurement.

Leprosy, lymphatic filariasis, schistosomiasis, leishmaniasis and onchocerciasis are all diseases that disfigure the body - (SLIDES), hence, men and women are affected but differently socially, economically and psychologically. Studies demonstrate that these diseases are particularly cruel for adolescent females and women because of their effects on marriage prospects (Amazigo and Obikeze, 1990), education and self esteem (Omega et al, 1996). The results of multi-country study on the social and economic effects of onchocerciasis demonstrated that school-age girls whose parents have severe onchocercal skin disease (OSD) are 2. 6 times more likely to drop out of school than their counterparts from non-OSD families (TDR/WHO, 1997). Some if not all tropical diseases have direct health effects that go beyond the immediate female victim. Malaria in women leads to low birth weight either by premature delivery or impaired growth in utero (TABLE) and in pregnant women provides an opportunity especially in Plasmodium falciparum infection for parasites to invade the fetus itself (McGregor, 1983). In women with onchocercal itching the duration of breastfeeding was reduced by more than 9 months for 25 per cent of the infected women who breastfed infants after the onset of disease condition (Amazigo, 1994).

Women have thus been subject to government attention in the provision of health services not for their own sake, but largely for their roles as mothers and for being responsible for family members health (Rathgeber and Vlassoff, 1993). In this discussion paper, infectious and parasitic diseases (malaria, tuberculosis, onchocerciasis) selected were chosen because they have deleterious impact on women and the size of their burden as measured in Disability-Adjusted Life Years (Daly's) (Murray and Lopez, 1994). Even when infections from them do not proceed to mortality they generate considerable morbidity i...

Research essay sample on Males And Females Men And Women