DR NELLY KALU
Improving the conditions people live and work in will go a long way in reducing illness and improving their health.
Indeed! The condition an individual grow, live and work have a lot of influence on their well-being.
People who live in Low-income settings are bound to fall ill than those who do not. This is because poverty encourages ill-health with the presence of poor sanitation, lack of potable water supply, poor housing. The list can go on and on.
Studies have shown that the high rate of diseases in developing regions like the sub-Saharan Africa is strongly linked to poverty.
There has been serious advocacy for the improvement of the living conditions of citizens in order to fight ill-health and increase the life expectancy in these regions.
The layman sees well-being or being healthy as being able to access the healthcare when they are ill and get drugs but the World Health Organization however redefined this to show that health and well-being should be seen holistically [outside the healthcare system]. This is because a lot has already gone on before an individual falls sick, there is a period known as the “incubation period” prior to the time a sick person starts to show symptoms.
It is usually the time in between contracting an infection to the time the first sign of the infection is seen or felt.
This means that to be able to detect an illness in its earliest stage people have to visit hospitals even when they are not ill.
Dr Kalu Nelly [OD] is an optometrist with over 10 years’ experience in the field of eye health. A social commentator and a health blogger. She writes from Abuja.
