Question

Imagine that you are the Surgeon General of the United States, who formulates national health policy. (A former Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop, formulated the crusade against tobacco smoking a generation ago). Describe what you believe is the primary health problem in the United States today. Justify your choice with as many facts (minimum 3) as you can find. Describe the steps you believe should be taken by a) government,b) private companies, c) organizations, and d) individuals to eradicate this health problem.

Answer 1

As I believe the primary health problem in the United States today is mental health problems mainly STRESS. Facing mental health problems means ultimately deterioration of physical health. Almost 67% Americans have been facing a high level of stress since the beginning of this decade and almost 50% of Americans believe that their stress levels are increasing day by day. The reasons for increasing their stress today are mainly –

a) Work and money. The corporate work culture in the United States results in increasing the stress of the employees. Americans work culture is one of the longest work cultures. It means Americans tend to work for long hours which causes stress.

Moreover, earning less money than offered hard work also causes stress among employees. The cost of living along with taxes, mortgages and loans take maximum portion of income. Due to lack of money stress is increasing among Americans day by day.

b) Poor personal and family life. Due to work culture Americans fail to maintain balance between work and personal life; and family life also. So, more than half of the population are facing poor relationships which results in broken marriage, divorces, etc. These are becoming the cause of stress.

c) Fear of future. Due to the continuous advancement of technologies, most of the corporations are able to cut cost of production and so they are laying off their employees. In fact, automation is cutting jobs in America at a high rate in present and as projected, more than 50% of jobs in America will be lost in the next few years. So, due to job insecurity, stress is increasing among Americans.

In order to eradicate this health problem in the United States the steps I believe should be taken at different levels.

a) Government: The government should interfere in the corporate work culture. Leisure time should be increased or work hours should be reduced.

b) Private companies: The main source of the cause of stress in America is corporate work culture. So, private companies should reform their corporate work culture so that high productivity is maintained and at the same time stress problem is reduced or eradicated.

c) Organizations: Organizations should inspire Americans to attend some motivational seminars, entrepreneurial skill development seminars, personal development seminars, etc.

d) Individuals: Spiritual knowledge can heal the soul, gives inner and mental power to deal with adversity outside. So, people should focus on gaining spiritual knowledge. It will definitely reduce or eradicate stress. Again, people at individual level should find out time for personal life; and family life in between works. They should also search for alternative careers like entrepreneurship, creativity, network marketing, etc so that their job insecurity, lack of time, lack of money, poor personal and family life etc issues are solved and at the same time happiness, productivity, wealth are increased and finally stress becomes invisible.