Food And Health Case Studies Flashcards
Nutrition Transition / Obesity
Mali
- Stage 4 of nutrition Transition. Incomes beginning to rise, individuals have more access to high calorie foods and become less active, leading to increases in obesity and related chronic illness.
- cultural reasons for women. Women who are larger and heavier are considered to be more beautiful.
- improved transportation leads to easier access to processed food. less active.
- incomes rise and processed food is more affordable.
- in 2012, over 3000 DALYs caused by maternal, neonatal, and most significantly nutritional disease.
- per capita expenditure has increased dramatically.
Vector Borne Disease
Malaria in Ethiopia
- caused by warm, humid tropical climates with stagnant surface water.
- high precipitation lead to increased pooling in the tropical climate, allowing mosquitoes to breed.
- population movements; workers in agriculture migrate during planting and harvesting season. many workers sleep in fields at night, when mosquitoes are most active.
- Irrigation Schemes in the Awash Valley and Gambella have led to construction of canals, micro-dams, and ponds.
- Misuse of drugs leads the malarial parasite to become drug resistant.
Impacts
- Deaths
- Low work output, absenteeism, slow economic growth and a poverty cycle.
- Ethiopia has to spend 40% of their national health budget on Malaria.
- Limited development on Western lowlands as highlands get higher population densities.
- Lower influx of tourists.
Prevention
- Periodic spraying of dwellings with intesticides.
- Managing environment to destroy breeding sites
- Genetic modification of mosquitoes that will not carry malaria, gradually replacing parasite carrying ones with GM ones. This strategy has faced some ethical concerns.
- Mass publicity campaigns to minimize mosquito breeding sites.
- Education schemes to improve sanitation.
- ACTS - the most effective antimalarials, reducing risk of infection by 90%.
Water Borne Disease
Cholera in Uganda
- In 2018, there was an outbreak of cholera in Uganda that killed 45 people in refugee camps.
- The outbreak began in February, and by May there were 2,276 reported cases in camps according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
Caused by:
- Overcrowding
- A lack of clean water
- Poor sanitation and hygiene practices.
Consequences
- Deaths
- Diversion of much needed financial and human resources, which led to further suffering and loss of life
- As a preventative measure, Uganda launched a major cholera vaccination campaign.
Government Tackling Food Insecurity
World Food Programme
- An international organization in the UN which provides food assistance worldwide, assisting 80 million people in 80 countries annually.
- Focuses on emergency assistance, relief and rehabilitation, development aid and special operations.
- They aim to end hunger and achieve food security and improve nutrition by 2030, through giving assistance to victims of war, civil conflict, natural disasters, etc.
- Main funding is governments, and on average, over 60 governments underwrite the humanitarian and development projects.
- Has been expanding operations to assist flood-hit Pakistani families four months since the flooding began in June 2022. They have provided emergency food and nutrition assistance, alongside recovery and resilience building support.
- Assistance of half a million people in need of food across Syria
NGO tackling food insecurity
The Trussel Trust
- An NGO in the UK which supports a nationwide network of food banks and provides emergency food and support to people locked in poverty. Set up in 1997.
- Aims to bring an end to the need for food banks in the UK and help 14 million people rise above the poverty line.
- Funded by schools, churches, business and individuals who donate non-perishable food.
- Most funds come from public donations.
- Also supported by other trusts and foundations such as the Pears Foundation and L&Q foundation.
- During the April-September 2022 period, they provided 1.3 million emergency food parcels through food banks, with almost half a million of these parcels going to children.
- Between April 2019 and March 2020, food banks provided 1.9 million food supplies to people in crisis.
Government Tackling Disease
World Health Organisation
- The United Nation agency that connects, partners and people to promote health, keep the world safe, and serve the vulnerable
- Aims to promote development in health, foster health security, strengthen health systems, and improve maternal, infant and young child nutrition.
- WHO gets its funding from Member states paying their assessed contributions, and voluntary contributions from Member states.
- In response to COVID-19, WHO headquarters held 134 media briefings. The OpenWHO platform had more than 4.8 million course enrolments, with 25 different COVID-19 courses available to support the response.
- The GLAAS 2022 report showed that the world was off track to achieve sustainable development goal 6 on water and sanitation for all, by 2023. As a response, a UN 2023 Water Conference was scheduled, helping the WHO to target the most vulnerable communities and solve the global war and sanitation crisis.
- The A
NGO Tackling Disease
Rural Health Mission Nigeria
- A nonprofit organization based in Gombe.
- It designed the COVID-19 response project which focuses on strengthening the response capacity of primary healthcare system.
- The project aims to train PHC workers on infection prevention and control, support PHC facilities with hand hygiene equipment and consumables.
- With support from the US embassy Abuja, the organization trained 114 PHC workers across all facilities and supported 114 facilities with hand hygiene equipment in Gombe state.
- Launched a complete online training package for infection prevention and control.
Falling life expectancy (for women)
America
- US life expectancy is now the lowest among high income nations.
- In 1960, American women were among the longest living females in the world, but the trend reversed itself in the 1980s, with their life expectancy lagging 2 and a half years behind women in other developed nations.
- Caused by diseases associated with smoking and obesity, such as lung cancer and diabetes.
- The US is doing well in treatment of cancer and heart disease, but where it fails is in obesity.
- Each cigarette smoked by a woman per day reduces her life expectancy by almost four months. In the 1980s, US females smoked 2.4 more cigarettes per day than women in other countries.
- For obesity, each 1% point increase in the percentage of women considered obese reduces life expectancy by more than half a month.
- The US is now a plus size nation.
- Low income workers may suffer high rates of mortality than those who can afford leisure time.
Famine / Aid
Yemen
- A country in the Middle East which occupies the southwest to southern end of the Arabian peninsula.
- Since 2016, Yemen has been suffering from the worst famine in the world in 100 years (says the UN). Over 17 million people are at risk, and 3.3 million women and children are constantly suffering from acute malnutrition.
Causes
- Civil War of 3 years. Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, seized much of the country, including the capital, Sana’a. The war damaged civilian infrastructure, including farms and livestock, and disrupted working lives. Food storage facilities in Yemen have been targeted.
- Fighting, roadblocks and bureaucratic obstacles have reduced the amount of aid coming in.
- Risk of flooding, drought and heavy sandstorms, leading to crop failure.
Impact
- 17 million people are food insecure and 3.5 million pregnant / breastfeeding women and children under 5 suffer from acute malnutrition.
- Disease like cholera has become prominent as people have to resort to contaminated water to survive.
- Slow economic growth because it inhibits productivity of workers, and places a strain on health and education systems.
Aid
- The USAID Food for Peace funds the UN and NGOs to implement partners to provide emergency assistance, including US sourced wheat, beans, and vegetable oil, and food vouchers for the most vulnerable.
- FFP provides ready to use therapeutic food to UNICEF for the treatment of children suffering from severe acute malnutrition in Yemen. - FFP supports the UN food and agriculture organization as lead coordinating body for international food organisations responding to food insecurity in Yemen.
- Media such as newspapers, television, and online platforms have helped to raise awareness of issues within Yemen, helping to mediate conflict and frame societal issues.
Solving Food Waste
Texas
- A 2015 study determines that more than 85% of trash and recycling in Austin, Texas, came from commercial businesses, multifamily properties, and the food industry. More than 37% of what ended up in landfills is organic waste that is compostable.
- In October 2018, the state capital implemented a new ordinance to prevent restaurants from disposing of food waste in landfills.
- Restaurants are now required to donate unconsumed food, send scraps to farms, or compost it.
- The city has a zero waste goal that they plan to reach by 2040. The plan calls for expanded recycling and economic development.
Tackling Food Waste 2
London
- People in London waste 230 pounds of food per person per year.
- Food and rubbish is being recycled to produce gas, electricity and fertilizers which can then be shipped out for a profit. Materials are processed by an anaerobic digestion tank and are shipped to farms in Surrey.
Bio Scheme
- Bio collectors convert food waste into electricity, biogas, and nutrient rich fertiliser.
- Waste is picked up by CNG vehicles fuelled by biogas generated from food waste, and delivered to an Anaerobic Digestion plant in South London.
- The collected waste is then machanically stripped of plastic packaging. It is broken into small particles and pumped through tanks and monitored to ensure the bacteria had the optimal conditions to digest food effectively.
- After 72 hours, the waste is used to generate electricity and Biogas which is filtered, screened for purity, and fed back into the National Grid.
- Leftover material is used for fertiliser.
Restaurants
- Many restaurants buy fresh goods locally and in season where possible, and source from sustainable brands.
- Pied a Terre - uses Indie Ecology, a company that travels across London collecting each restaurant’s food waste into compost, and deliver fresh, organic vegetables grown from it.
- Fresh Thinking Pop Up Café - a two day pop up venture from Jamie Oliver and Hotpoint which serves surplus good from local areas in Bethnal Green and sends proceeds to the charity Food Cycle.
- Cub - the restaurant’s tables are crafted from recycled yogurt pots and the air is filtered through breathable clay in the walls.
Pandemic
Ebola
- The WHO brings together local teams, partners, Donors, and the leadership of the ministry of health to combat Ebola.
- Within hours of the Ebola outbreak on the 8th May in the DRC, WHO released US$2 million from its Contingency Fund for Emergencies, deployed a team to augment capacity in the field.
- Experts in Guinea spent weeks leading Ebola vaccination efforts.
- MSF responded to the Ebola epidemic in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
- They provided psychological support, health promotion, surveillance contact training, and ran activities to improve non-Ebola healthcare.
- Post outbreak, they provided medical care for survivors of the disease in a dedicated clinic.
- At the peak of the outbreak, they focused on damage control, which included making difficult choices in the absence of available treatment and sufficient resources, and making compromises between competing priorities of patient care, surveillance, safe burials and outreach activities.
