ISSN: 2691-5774
Authors: Hoffman DP*
To the great frustration of public health practitioners and healthcare providers alike, preventable chronic conditions and risk factors continue to be present and, in some cases, grow in influencing our collective health and wellbeing. Despite some reduction in demand on health systems with a lessening of the Covid-19 pandemic, we continue to read of long waits for appointments for primary and specialty care, and our definitions of “Urgent” and “Emergency” bear scrutiny. Workforce shortages remain an issue across jurisdictions and other functional challenges remain including ambulance diversion and delays on entry to emergency rooms, closing floors while demand for beds increases, shortages of supplies and medications, and continued presence of risk factors (i.e. tobacco and related products, unhealthy foods, community challenges to regular physical activity). These are important, but an incomplete picture without addressing the proven opportunities for prevention of chronic conditions and risk factors that lead to these troubling phenomena. When we consider what could be gained by preventing many cases of overweight and obesity, reducing stress on our bodies through better diet and more activity, better outcomes through earlier screening for common cancers and other public health strategies, we see clearly that investing in these efforts on a national basis must be part of the solution. Further, these challenges must be addressed in a way the levels the playing field so people now subject to disparate conditions have equitable access comparable to all.
Keywords: Chronic Disease; Covid-19; Obesity; Heart Disease; Cancer
