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by PCUSA Nat. Health and your Health & Care Committee:
In General: If we have been listening, we already know that children’s health issues are causing consternation, with increasing obesity rates and the early signs of diseases like hypertension and diabetes, exacerbated by weight gain, at record levels for young people. Sedentary lifestyles eating habits and nutrition are likely key to much of this change. We also know that autism is being diagnosed at increasing rates — one child in every 150 — potentially reflecting better diagnostic tools compounding a real increase in numbers of cases, a rise that some suggest maybe be attributable to mercury that has been used as a preservative in vaccines.
These mentioned are but the beginning of a litany of health concerns impacting the lives of children. After having declined for decades, the percentage of low birth-weight babies (affecting both infant mortality and ability to thrive) is again rising and the rate among African-American mothers is double that of Caucasian and Latina women. The infant death rate in the United States is double that of Hong Kong, Sweden and Japan with the United States rate ranking 26th among developed countries. Most alarming, the infant mortality rate for African-American babies is 2½ times that of the rate in general.
A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reports that of the 80 million children in the United States today, almost 8 percent, 6.5 million young people, have chronic health issues that interfere with their daily activities. According to James M. Perrin, M.D., lead author of the study and professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, even a larger number of children could be affected. “If children with chronic conditions not severe enough to be disabling are counted, chronic conditions affect about 18 percent of American teens and children in all.” This number has risen steadily for the past four decades. According to Perrin, in 1960, only 2 percent of children had chronic health conditions [now-eradicated polio accounted for many of these]. Again, according to Perrin, the top three causes of chronic disease are 1) obesity, affecting at least 18 percent of children and teens, 2) asthma and 3) ADHD.
HIV/AIDS - Stereotypes have frequently clouded the reality of who is at risk for HIV/AIDS. [Per] a report from the CDC on heterosexual transmission, potential mothers, especially those who are African-American or Latina, are increasingly at risk for HIV infection through heterosexual contact. The report indicates that the HIV prevalence rate among disadvantaged youth is 50 percent higher among young women aged 16–21 than the rate among young men in that age group. (2) African-American women in this study were seven times as likely as white women and eight times as likely as Hispanic women to be HIV-positive. Young women are at risk for sexually transmitted HIV for several reasons, including biologic vulnerability, lack of recognition of their partners’ risk factors, inequality in relationships and having sex with older men who are more likely to be infected with HIV.
*** [Safe sex is discarded because of the illusion that new meds will take care of the problem.] WANTED: BY THE HEALTH AND CARE MINISTRY COMMITTEE:
Visitors: Someone to help us visit the sick besides the pastors. We have one person already; we need another.
Writers: Do you have information or insights concerning church members health or care? If so, we would like to receive your contribution for use in the Worship and Work. All submissions will be reviewed by someone on our committee before forwarding to the office for inclusion.
If you are interested, please contact Committee Chair, Dana Schmidt, Thanks! |
Worship and Work 
