Health Status in Rural Areas
Health status comparisons are typically assessed through rates of life expectancy, morbidity, and mortality found life expectancy rates to be significantly higher in urban areas when compared to rural areas. Life expectancy in men ranged from 74 years in the most remote areas of Canada to 76.8 years its urban centers. As for women, life expectancy was again lowest in rural areas with an average of 81.3 years. Interestingly, those living in rural areas adjacent to urban centers experience slightly higher rates of life expectancy (men-77.4 years; women- 81.5 years). Likewise, Australian life expectancy ranged from 78 years to 72 years in major cities to very remote locations. In light of these life expectancy rates, it is not surprising that all-cause mortality rates of both Canadian and Australian persons increased as per the level of remoteness. In China, the life expectancy of the female population at birth is 73.59 years in urban areas and 72.46 in rural areas. Male life expectancy is 69.73 years in urban areas and 58.99 in rural areas. Most rural men are hard workers in the agricultural sector and for the most part may not be able to afford health care and the appropriate services may not be available.
The common leading causes of death in rural areas include higher risks of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, as well as injury (i.e., poisonings, motor vehicle accidents). Again, further adding to the complexities of rural health, there are exceptions to the abovementioned statistics. For instance, opposite trends were found in New Zealand where urban dwellers were more likely to have been diagnosed with heart disease, asthma, arthritis, and osteoporosis than their rural counterparts. These conflicting results confirm that much still needs to be learned regarding the impact of ‘place’ on health.
Read more about this topic: Rural Health
Famous quotes containing the words health, status, rural and/or areas:
“The first year was critical to my assessment of myself as a person. It forced me to realize that, like being married, having children is not an end in itself. You don’t at last arrive at being a parent and suddenly feel satisfied and joyful. It is a constantly reopening adventure.”
—Anonymous Mother. From the Boston Women’s Health Book Collection. Quoted in The Joys of Having a Child, by Bill and Gloria Adler (1993)
“Anthropologists have found that around the world whatever is considered “men’s work” is almost universally given higher status than “women’s work.” If in one culture it is men who build houses and women who make baskets, then that culture will see house-building as more important. In another culture, perhaps right next door, the reverse may be true, and basket- weaving will have higher social status than house-building.”
—Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Excerpted from, Gender Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World (1990)
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“If a walker is indeed an individualist there is nowhere he can’t go at dawn and not many places he can’t go at noon. But just as it demeans life to live alongside a great river you can no longer swim in or drink from, to be crowded into safer areas and hours takes much of the gloss off walking—one sport you shouldn’t have to reserve a time and a court for.”
—Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)