Preventing Cardiovascular Disorders - Guidelines and Action Plans

Running head: POLICY DEVELOPMENT
POLICY DEVELOPMENT
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POLICY DEVELOPMENT
Introduction:
Cardiovascular disorder (CVD) is one of the leading causes of mortality and disease
burden in the nation of Australia. It has been found that the number if people living with
cardiovascular disorders is increasing in the nation. Cardiovascular disorders can be
explained as the collective term for disorders of the heart as well as that of the blood vessels.
This disorder is mainly seen to include coronary cardiomyopathy, heart disease, congenital
heart disease, heart failure, and stroke and peripheral vascular disease (Mozaffarian, 2016). A
huge number of people in the nation is suffering from this disorder which had impacted the
economic situation of the nation affecting the healthcare industry. Many studies are of the
opinion that this disorder is a lifestyle related disorder where proper education and
development of a supportive environment can help people adopt to healthy behaviours and
prevent occurrence of CVD. This assignment mainly includes developing a policy to spread
awareness and help people to prevent the occurrence of CVD by adopting proper lifestyle
choices.
Policy name: Preventing cardiovascular disorders in the nation – guidelines and action
plans
Policy issues:
As per data, about 4.2 million people in the nation accounting for about 18.3% of the
people had reported to be living with a disorder of the circulatory system. Among them, 1.2
million people are seen to be suffering from cardiovascular conditions like that of stroke and
heart disorders. Data by Department of Health also revealed that about 2.6 million people
have reported of high blood pressure and about 43000 people had reported of experiencing
heart attack at some point of their life. Cardiovascular disorder has also become the leading
cause of death in the nation where in the year 2015, approximately 45392 number of deaths

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accounting for about 29% of the deaths in the nation had been reported having an underlying
cause of the cardiovascular disorders (Prince et al., 2015). Moreover, statistical analysis have
also shown that an estimated 69,600 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons were found
to be suffering from the heart disorders in the year 2014-2015 that equated to about 15.7% of
the total number of the indigenous people who are living in the nation. This was found to be
about triple the rate of the total number of cardiovascular disorders cases reported in the non-
indigenous people in the population. Hence, from this entire statistical scenario it can be
easily understood that this disorders had become one of the largest health burden in the nation
with huge number of morbidity as well as mortality in the nation. Hence, policy needs to be
developed in order to control the prevalence of the disorder and develop action plans that
would help in preventing the disorder from taking the shape of an epidemic in the nation.
Risk factors resulting in cardiovascular disorders:
Cardiovascular disorder has a number of risk factors that can be classified into two
categories. One of them is the non-modifiable risk factors that mainly include of these factors
that cannot be modified or changed. These are mainly seen to include the age of the person,
ethnicity as well as the family history. Another category is called the modifiable risk factors
that are mainly seen to include the factors that can be controlled with the help of the altered
behaviours. These risk factors are seen to include eating unhealthy foods, living sedentary
lives with no physical activities and exercises, smoking of tobacco as well as drinking of
alcohol at an excessive rate, diabetes and others. Studies are of the opinion that by making
certain lifestyle changes, people would be able to lower their chances of developing
cardiovascular disorders (Piepoli et al., 2016). Poor socioeconomic status is one the social
determinants of health that is found to share a complex relationship with the occurrence of
cardiovascular disorders. Studies opine that people of this cohort have less access to
healthcare services, low education, lack of proper income and many others, which indirectly

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results people to develop cardiovascular disorders by making them uptake poor quality life.
The following paragraph would show the prevalence of the risky behaviours among the
people of the nation thereby exposing them to CVD.
Reasons for taking cardiovascular disorder as one of the biggest health concern in the policy:
Cardiovascular disorders have become one of the major causes of death in the nation
with about 43477 deaths that are attributed to CVD in the year 2017. Studies show that CVD
kills about one Australian every 12 minutes showing the extent of the threats faced by the
nation from this disorder. Despite of the various improvements that had been made in the
nation over the last few decades, it remains about the biggest burdens on the economy of the
nation (Neubeck et al., 2015). The disorder is seen to affect one in every six citizen in the
nation that account for about 4.2 million with most of the people above the age of 65 to live
currently with the disorder having very poor quality life. CVD had been the reason for
575800 hospitalisations in the year 2016 to 2017 and had been found to claim lives of about
43477 people in the year 2017 where the deaths were largely preventable. If close analysis is
done, it can be found that
 in the year 2014/2015, about 6 million adults in the nation accounting for about 34%
who are aged 18 and above have been found to be suffering from the conditions of
hypertension where systolic or diastolic heart pressure was found to be above 140/90
mmHg
 in the year 2011/2012, about one third of the people in the nation aged 18 years and
over had been measured to have high cholesterol that accounted for about 5.6 million
people in the nation