Cardiovascular Disorders: Individual, Family, Community Impact

This essay examines cardiovascular disorders, defining them as diseases of the heart and blood vessels with potentially life-threatening consequences. It explores the impact of these disorders on individuals, families, and communities, including financial burdens, lifestyle restrictions, and social exclusion. The essay connects the health issue to the Australian National Health Priorities, highlighting that cardiovascular disorders are preventable and share risk factors with other conditions. It then delves into three social determinants of health—unemployment/low income, low education/health literacy, and lack of healthcare access—and their relationship to cardiovascular disorders. Finally, the essay discusses an upstreaming approach to nursing care, emphasizing preventive measures, health promotion, and patient education to improve outcomes and reduce the health burden of these disorders. The essay concludes by referencing relevant studies to support its arguments.

Running head: CARDIOVASCULAR DISORDERS
CARDIOVASCULAR DISORDERS
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Cardiovascular disorder and impact on individual family and community:
Cardiovascular disorder can be referred to the collective term of the diseases of heart as
well as blood vessels. This term mainly includes diseases such as the coronary heart disease,
cardiomyopathy, heart failure as well as congenital heart diseases, peripheral vascular disorder
and even stroke (Sahle et al. 2016). Many of these conditions are found to be life-threatening. In
the year 2014-2015, about 4.2 million adults in the nation was seen to suffer from disorders of
the circulatory systems that accounted for about 18.35 of the population. This included about 1.2
million people who had cardiovascular conditions like that of stroke and heart diseases. About
2.6 million people have seen to be reporting having high blood pressure and about 430000
people who had experienced heart attack.
The patient might face short term complications like that of angina. For this, they may be
afraid of themselves in exerting themselves for the fear of chest pain and other uncomfortable
symptoms. They may develop swelling as well as dizziness and other symptoms that can affect
their ability in completing their daily tasks and resulting in losing of freedom and independence.
They may also suffer from stress knowing that they would have to stay with long term ailemnts
that may cause stroke or heart attack at any time (Shipley et al. 2016). Individuals who are
suffering from the disorder had to lead restricted lifestyle that may also affect their morale.
Families might face financial burdens because if one of the family members get affected by the
disorders, huge money would be spent on healthcare services. Families have to care for the
patients as many of them lose their independence and this might result in stress and frustration
among family members. They might face social exclusion resulting in loss of mental stability
and agitations and frustration. The communities which have higher levels of cardiovascular

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patients might show lower productivity and high rate of absenteeism in the schools, colleges,
offices and other places.
Relationship between health issue and at least one of the Australian National Health
Priorities:
Most of the premature deaths as well as much of the morbidity caused by the
cardiovascular disorder are considered to be preventable. The Australian National Health
Priorities had identified cardiovascular disorders as one of the national health priority which
share its risk factors with many of the other several health conditions like diabetes and some
major types of cancer and therefore, AIWH states that it is important for addressing these risk
factors in order to produce wider health gains than just flowing directly from a reduction in
cardiovascular disorders (Tooher et al. 2017). Five of the twenty leading cause of death in the
year 2007 were attributed to some form of cardiovascular disorders. These five causes had been
found to account for about 40,688 deaths or about 30% of all the registered deaths in the year
2007. The major underlying causes of the disorders are the heart failure, coronary heart disease,
stroke, and peripheral vascular disease. Cardiovascular disorders was found to be the underlying
cause of around 46626 deaths that had been registered in the nation in 2007 which represented
about 34% of all deaths (Hocking et al. 2017). These diseases also contributed to around 78351
deaths as either an underlying as well as an associated cause of death. In the year 2014/2015, 6
million people accounting for about 34% aged 18 years and over had high blood and in the year
2011/2012, one third-third of the adult population aged 18 years and over had measured of high
cholesterol. The later represents for about 5.6 million adults. This scenario shows that it has
indeed become one of the most important health concerns in the present moment and needs to be
handled with urgency.

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Relationship between the chosen health issue and three of the Social Determinants of
Health
Social determinants of health can be explained as the conditions where individuals are
seen to take birth, grow, work, survive and age. These factors determines the various
opportunities people get for healthy living and to maintain a quality of life that ensures their
well-being physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. One of the social determinants of
health is unemployment and low income (Hocking et al. 2017). When people are not employed
and they have poor income, they are not able to buy healthy and nutritious organic foods which
are costly. They are seen to buy calorie-dense fast foods and take-away foods which result in
increasing calorie content of the body making people suffer from obesity, high blood pressure,
hypercholestermia and others. All such health concerns act as risk factors for cardiovascular
disorders. Hence, low income and unemployment is one of the social determinants of health that
can result in cardiovascular disorders. Another social determinant of health is called low
education and lack of health literacy (Russel et al. 2015). When people have low levels of
education, they do not remain aware of the importance of proper foods habits and good lifestyle
choices. Lack of health literacy makes them uptake poor health behaviors and health choices that
make them more prone to develop cardiovascular disorders. For example, person with poor
health literacy may seem to be engaged in sedentary lifestyles with no proper physical activities
that increases the chance of cardiovascular disorders. Another important social determinant of
health is lack of access to healthcare services. Many of the people belonging to low
socioeconomic classes are often seen to have poor access to healthcare services. Many of the
people living in the remote areas as well as people from the culturally different backgrounds are
also seen to face issues while accessing for healthcare services regarding heart disorders. They

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do not get scopes of early screenings as well as other healthcare services or cannot afford to
spend for the costly services in the healthcare centers. Hence, lack of accessibility to healthcare
services is yet another social determinant of health that can impact people making them suffer
from cardiovascular disorders.
Relationship between the chosen health issue and an up streaming approach to nursing
care:
The healthcare professionals need to focus more on preventive measures than on curative
measures for reducing the prevalence of the disorder. Studies have classified cardiovascular
disorders as lifestyle disorders in the present date and hence professionals can try their best to
help people develop proper lifestyle choices and health behaviors that prevent them from
developing the disorder (Gupta et al. 2018). The nursing professionals should focus on
development of health promotion sessions to spread awareness about the disorders and
advocating to the government about the interventions that are needed to develop an environment
that is supportive to the needs of the people to develop healthy lifestyle choices. Health
education sessions need to be arranged in the communities so that people learn about the disorder
and develop ideas about the ways which can prevent the occurrence of the disorder. Preventive
care can help in reducing the health burden of economy of the disorder on the economy of the
nation (Folley et al. 2015). Moreover, besides, nurses should also educate already affected
patients the importance of participating in rehabilitation services to develop the quality life and
to prevent the disorder from recurring again. Nurse professionals should also educate them about
consuming less alcohol and tobacco along with eating fresh fruits and vegetables and also
reduction of salt intake with the avoiding of sedentary lifestyles particularly among children.

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Besides, they should be educated about the medications that are provided to them and how taking
them, can help them to prevent recurrence of the disorders.

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References:
Bradley, T.D. and Floras, J.S. eds., 2016. Sleep Apnea: implications in cardiovascular and
cerebrovascular disease. CRC Press.
Foley, D.L., Mackinnon, A., Morgan, V.A., Watts, G.F., Shaw, J.E., Magliano, D.J., Castle, D.J.,
McGrath, J.J., Waterreus, A. and Galletly, C.A., 2015. Cardiovascular risk factor associations in
adults with psychosis and adults in a national comparator sample. Australian & New Zealand
Journal of Psychiatry, 49(8), pp.714-723.
Gupta, A.K., 2018. Hypertensive Disorders in Pregnancy and the Risk of Cardiovascular
Disease: A Need for Postpartum Strategies for the Primary Prevention.
Hocking, S., Dear, A. and Cowley, M.A., 2017. Current and emerging pharmacotherapies for
obesity in Australia. Obesity research & clinical practice, 11(5), pp.501-521.
Russell, E.A., Tran, L., Baker, R.A., Bennetts, J.S., Brown, A., Reid, C.M., Tam, R., Walsh,
W.F. and Maguire, G.P., 2015. A review of outcome following valve surgery for rheumatic heart
disease in Australia. BMC cardiovascular disorders, 15(1), p.103.
Sahle, B.W., Owen, A.J., Mutowo, M.P., Krum, H. and Reid, C.M., 2016. Prevalence of heart
failure in Australia: a systematic review. BMC cardiovascular disorders, 16(1), p.32.
Shipley, T., 2016. BMC Cardiovascular Disorders reviewer acknowledgement 2015. BMC
cardiovascular disorders, 16(1), p.40.
Tooher, J., Thornton, C., Makris, A., Ogle, R., Korda, A. and Hennessy, A., 2017. All
hypertensive disorders of pregnancy increase the risk of future cardiovascular
disease. Hypertension, 70(4), pp.798-803.

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