Starting today (16.04.23) is Earth Week, ending on Earth Day - 22cnd of April. In honour of this there will be a series of posts, elaborating on some of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Today, we are focusing on Global Goal 3.
Good Health and Well-being
What does this goal entail?
Global Goal 3: Good Health and Well-being focuses on medical care for everyone, affordable medicine and vaccines, reducing maternal and infant mortality, preventing deaths and diseases due to pollution, and many more targets we all hope to achieve as quickly as possible.
How can medical care become more affordable?
Healthcare is essential to everyone. The issue with it is that, in many countries the cost is astronomically large. istrative costs and unnecessary testing are two large contributors to the large hospital bills some of us see. The overall cost of each is 1 trillion USD for istration and 2.2 billion USD for unnecessary lab testing upon ission or initial check ups.
Policies must be put in place to prevent doctors from forcing patients into unnecessary testing and istrative costs must be cut down.
Another issue is the high prices of medical drugs, estimated to rise by 2.6% a year. Often this hike falls entirely on the patient. In Europe, many governments intervene and stop medicine prices from rising so patients do not have to pay an extremely large amount.
How can we reduce maternal and infant mortality?
In many parts of the world, maternal and infant mortality is extremely high.
While the world has made impressive progress in reducing maternal and infant deaths between 1990 and 2023, there is still an unacceptably large number of maternal and newborn deaths - mostly from preventable causes such as infectious diseases or complications during pregnancy. Recently there have been large setbacks regarding maternal health, placing many mothers - especially adolescent mothers at great risk.
The leading causes are severe bleeding, infections and complications from unsafe abortions. These are all largely preventable with access to high quality health care. If the trend of setbacks isn’t reversed, an estimated one million - likely more - women will die before 2030 due to lacking medical resources.
How is the earths health related to ours?
While it may not be obvious, the earths health and our health are related. Pollution has caused a rise in health issues like asthma and melting permafrost ground is releasing unknown bacteria into the air.
One third of deaths from stroke, lung cancer, and heart disease are caused by pollution. This is caused by micro pollutants in the air and water entering our respiratory and circulatory system. Major contributors to this type of pollution are fossil fuels and micro plastics.
Worldwide, 14% of children aged 5 - 18 have asthma caused by air pollution. Half a million children are estimated to die yearly of respiratory diseases linked to air pollution.
Pollution can also affect fetal growth and is linked to cognitive impairment in children and adults.
What can we do?
Unfortunately, the only things we can do is try to reduce pollution as much as possible. Reduce our use of and demand for fossil fuels and plastic. Air pollution must be controlled.
We must petition to our governments to change or implement policies placing a cap on medical costs. There need to be regulations on tests and pharmaceutical and vaccine prices. Medical care must be accessible to everyone and all possible maternal and infant healthcare options must be provided.
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