Factors Affecting the Health of Children

Factors affecting the Health of Children

Introduction

In the course of ontogeny during childhood and adolescence, from 0 to 17 years, is an extremely stressful period of morphological and functional modifications that should be considered when assessing the health of the formation? At the same time, this age period is characterized by the influence of a whole complex of social conditions and changes them frequently (nursery, kindergarten, school, vocational training, and employment).

Child population is exposed to multiple environmental factors, many of which are considered as risk factors for adverse changes in the body. A decisive role in the occurrence of deviations in the health of children and adolescents are three groups of factors:

1) The factors that characterize the genotype of populations ("genetic load");

2) A way of life;

3) The environment.

Causes of Children Health Problems

According to data provided by the Indian Census Bureau, a record 46.6 million Indians had no health insurance in 2005, the last year for which data are available. More than 8 million of those uninsured Indians were under the age of 18 (Rife, 2009). Many children go uninsured because their parents have jobs that do not provide health care benefits, and their parents cannot afford to purchase health insurance on their own.

Environmental Factors and Health Risks

According to WHO's contribution to shaping the health of the social factors and lifestyle is about 40%, the factors of environmental pollution - 30% (including the proper climatic conditions - 10%), biological factors, 20%, health care - 10% (Holtz, 2008) . However, these values are averages, do not account for age-growth and development, the formation of the pathology in certain periods of their lives, the prevalence of risk factors. The role of various social, genetic and biomedical factors in the development of adverse changes in health status varies depending on age and sex of the individual (Porth, 2007).

Indeed, UNICEF says that guaranteeing health care for underprivileged children should be considered a moral imperative. Indian government say that another good reason for expanding National Health Support Program (NHSP) is that it is in the country's best interest to ensure that as many of its youngest citizens grow up as healthy as possible, since they will be joining the Indian workforce within the next decade or two (Horton, 2004). NHSP expansion would bring the country huge returns later on, when we baby boomers have retired and need a healthy workforce to pay into national Social Security fund.

Medical and Biological Risk Factors

The health of children is influenced by individual factors:

1) Medical and biological risk factors for pregnancy and birth mother's parental age at the time of birth, chronic illness in parents, acute illness in the mother during pregnancy, during pregnancy taking various drugs, during pregnancy, complications of pregnancy (Holtz, 2008).

2) Risk factors for early childhood: birth weight, the nature of feeding, variations in health status in the first year of life, etc.

3) The risk factors that characterize the conditions and way of life: housing, income ...