GSH-300 M4 Safety and Health in the Workplace May 20, 2015
Instructor: Jan Cohen
Michael Rhoden
Week 1 Day 1 Homework Assignment

Chapter 1: Respond to all the questions of the ‘Think about It” on page 25. Each response should be detailed with personal thought, supported with text and research, and be a minimum of 100 words. 1. How are the words health and wellness similar? What are important distinctions between these terms? What is health promotion? Disease prevention?
Health is basically the overall condition or state of being of someone’s body, mind, or spirit. Furthermore, health is the state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being; not just the absence of disease or infirmity (Donatelle, Health: The Basics, 11th Edition, 2015) “Wellness (Merriam-Webster, 2015) is the quality or state of being in good health; especially as an actively sought goal”. Both of these terms encompass the following six interrelated health dimensions: physical, social, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and environmental. Wellness as an active goal (while recognizing an individual’s potential) recognizes various levels or gradients within all six interrelated health dimensions and how they influence or improve the overall health of someone versus just the state of their physical health. Health promotion according to the author (Donatelle, p. 6) is the combined educational, organizational, procedural, environmental, social, and financial supports that help individuals and groups reduce negative health behaviors in order to foster and maintain positive change. Disease prevention is combined efforts through policy, programs, and available services to improve individual health of the population as a whole. The focus is to reduce or eliminate the factors that cause illness or injury in populations. 2. How healthy is the U.S. population today? Is our health status better or worse than it has previously been? What factors influence today’s disparities in health?
People today in the United States a today have an overall life expectancy of 78.7 years for a child born in 2011 (Donatelle, p. 3). This statistic alone does not accurately portray the actual health of America. Homicides, auto accidents, suicides, and many accidental deaths aren’t actually attributable to health. Also, with the advances in medicine through vaccines and antibiotics premature death throughout the 21st century from infectious diseases has dramatically decreased. I know one thing if the United States government runs anything including healthcare it’s going to be the most costly and probably ineffective. The United States pays $8,508 per capita on healthcare which is far more than Norway which is number two at $5,659 (Bernstein, 2014). The major findings of this report indicate the United States fares well in providing preventative and patient centered care. But according to the report a relative shortage of primary care physicians and lack to primary care for poor or low income individuals exists. Routine care or skipped tests for the poor are the norm not the exception. The number one problem is cost and access to treatment for all individuals. The report indicates 10 industrialized countries are better at administering healthcare than we are. People are simply living longer. However, the quality of life is spent more dealing with chronic illnesses than enjoying the golden years. Obesity, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease are still the leading causes of death in the United States. Our health status has not improved since 2004 compared to the other 10 industrialized nations. We seem to have accepted our position that out sad healthcare system is in. Factors that influence today’s disparities are as follows: (1) Social (2) Economic (3) Built-in environment (4) Pollutants and infectious agents (5) Access to quality health service (6) Policymaking

3. What are some of the health disparities existing in the United