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Why is improving health important? Give an example of a place that where health has led to economic growth? Why is this? Give an example of a place where this has not happened?
Health is central to a human capital. An individual is not capable of spreading his full potential in fulfilling his task to himself, his family and his surroundings if health is at risk. Improving one’s health leads to a healthy disposition in life and managing daily work, challenges and issues. Furthermore, improved health prevent an individual from experiencing wide range of health problems including heart attack, diabetes, depression and various types of cancers. An improved health established a daily good dose of mood in an individual .
A study in Guatemala showed the relationship of children fed with supplements during the early life of their childhood and their earnings when they reach adult. The studies showed that children, who received at least 32,000 calories during the first three years of their lives, then when they become children and adult, tend to earn more than those who obtained less calories. In this study, the children in four villages in Guatemala consumed atole, a drink derived from mixtures of vegetable protein, dry skim milk and sugar. The initial study dated from 1969 to 1977 and a follow up research on health and nutrition happened between 2002 and 2004. The objective was to understand the longer impact of healthy supplements to the nutrition, health and productivity of the children. This study revealed that those children who consumed the supplements have higher intelligence rates, thus, resulted to better human capital and higher hourly wages for Guatemalan men . On the other hand, sub-Saharan African countries show not much improvement on economic growth even if persistent health improvement campaign happens. Some organizations successfully implemented programmes to deal with effects of HIV, Aids and even Malaria in these countries. The research and analysis showed that provision for antiretroviral treatment to HIV-positive citizens of the country projected financial savings between 2003 and 2022. The implementation of this programme to some other sub-Saharan African countries became difficult particularly to those countries with lower wages and depends on company benefits. Because of this, the economic growth has not revealed much improvement because many employees leave their companies as a result of these illnesses and also led to lower productivity. Thus, this prolonged circumstance result to less improvement in the economy of the country .
Works Cited
Bloom, D., & Canning, D. (2008). Population Health and Economic Growth, working paper no. 24. Washington, D.C.: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Fuentes, J. A., Hernandez, J., & Pascual, M. (2001). The Effects of Early Nutritional Intervention on Human Capital Formation. Geneva: Insitute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama for Working Group I of the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health.
Impact of HIV and AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. (2014, November). Retrieved from Averting HIV and AIDs: http://www.avert.org/impact-hiv-and-aids-sub-saharan-africa.htm
