Healthcare Issue at Kansas

     Diabetes is a health care issue that affects a large part of the world population and Kansas and Wichita State is no exception. It is a chronic disease characterized by high levels of blood sugar resulting from inadequate production of insulin or its resistance. From a report by the American Diabetes Association in 2014, 10.3% of the Kansas adults aged 18 years and above were reported to be diagnosed with diabetes which is a proportion of one in every 10 adults in Kansas. About 6.5% of the Kansas adults were diagnosed with pre-diabetes during the period (Kansas Department of Health and Environment, 2016). 

The prevalence of diabetes and pre-diabetes at Kansas increases with increase in age and the highest prevalence are recorded among the adults aged 55 years and older.

            The health issue is more prevalent among the non-Hispanic African-Americans than non-Hispanic Whites. Diabetes is associated with significant complications such as heart disease, stroke, retinopathy, kidney failure, and peripheral neuropathy (Ablah, Dong, Cupertino, Konda, Johnston & Collins, 2015). In 2013, 15% of the adults with diabetes in Kansas were reported to have retinopathy and in 2014, more than 14% of them had a stroke or coronary heart disease. Since diabetes is the 7th leading cause of death in U.S and in Kansas, it is important to address the health issue to reduce its prevalence. The issue is important since it affects a large part of the population in Kansas and the U.S. Despite having various and complex risk factors of diabetes such as genetics, there is a significant part associated with behavioral and lifestyle factors. As such, Kansas population should focus on prevention and managing the condition through lifestyle factors. Diabetes can be prevented by maintaining healthy weight, avoiding too much drinking of alcohol, avoiding smoking, taking healthy diets, and having regular physical exercises (Ablah, Dong, Cupertino, Konda, Johnston & Collins, 2015). For those already diagnosed with the condition, they need to adhere to medication and also the lifestyle behaviors for better management of the condition.

References

Ablah, E., Dong, F., Cupertino, A. P., Konda, K., Johnston, J. A., & Collins, T. (2015).     Prevalence of diabetes and pre-diabetes in Kansas: Ethnicity & disease, 23(4), 415-420.

Kansas Department of Health and Environment (2016) Kansas Diabetes and Pre-diabetes Facts: Health Promotion.

Carolyn Morgan is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in Online Paper Writing Service. If you need a similar paper you can place your order from Professional Custom Writing Services.