Policy Development for Chronic Ailments

Running head: POLICY DEVELOPMENT
POLICY DEVELOPMENT
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POLICY DEVELOPMENT
Policy health issue:
Present day advancements in modern medicine, scientific interventions and technological
innovations are helping people to live longer. The life expectancy of people has increased from
70 years in 1960 to that of 78.9 years in the year 2018. Although, human are living longer in the
nation, but their quality of life is found to be quite poor. This is because people are living with
chronic ailments and are not able to manage their symptoms successfully (van Hooft et al.,
2017).
Mostly behavioral problems and the fast paced lifestyle are considered to be the
contributing factors to such ailments. Intake of calorie dense fast foods and take-away foods,
presence of sedentary lifestyles and lack of physical activities, excessive alcohol and tobacco
consumptions, lack of health literacy and other factors are considered the cause of such chronic
ailments. It results in different physical changes like physiological alteration of normal
functioning of the body and organs, poor self-image, pain and suffering along with restricted
mobility (Vasiliadis et al., 2016). Social isolation, stress, anxiety and depression are also seen
among affected patients besides feelings of fatigue, sleeplessness, role reversals in families, loss
of independence, disrupted lifestyle and many others. These results in tremendous suffering and
poor quality life of people making people live unsuccessful and unsatisfactory lives.
Besides, the poor quality lives, increased absenteeism and lack of productivity because of
chronic ailments, these disorders have humungous impact on healthcare cost. According to the
data of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), chronic ailments are found to account
for about approximately 75 percent of the nation’s aggregate of the healthcare spending. This
estimates for about $5300 per person in the United States every year. To be more precise, it has

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POLICY DEVELOPMENT
been found that a person living with 1 chronic ailment is 59% of the US adults and these
accounts for 90% of the healthcare spending. Individuals living with 3 chronic orders account to
about 28% of the US adults and associated with 67% of the healthcare spending and the people
living with more than 5 disorders account to 12 % with 41% of the health care spending (May et
al., 2015). It has become a national issue now with the prevalence rate being found to be spread
across the entire nation.
Problem statement:
It is important to reduce healthcare costs and burden of chronic ailments on the healthcare
resources allocated per year in united states and also develop the quality of life of the people
progressing towards higher ages and for this, policies need to be developed so as to initiate
strategies and educate citizens for behavioral changes, guide different governmental and non-
governmental sectors and professionals to work collaboratively to reduce the prevalence of the
disorder in the nation making a fitter nation.
Suggestions to tackle the health issue in the policy:
A number of strategies are excessively important to be initiated in order to help the nation
in reducing the prevalence of chronic ailments.
 The most important responsibility lies in the hands of the healthcare professionals. The
health professionals need to take the responsibility of initiating the trend of preventive
measures rather than curative measures as this would save huge expenditures. Different
preventive measures are mainly seen to include establishment of health promotion
programs, health education sessions, and patient education systems. Importance of
maintaining diet based on fruits and vegetables and reducing intake of calorific food