Health care in the UAE
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), health is the general well-being of an individual’s mind and body, and it denotes a lack of disease, injury, or pain. The term, however, has in the recent times been used to denote various non-living organizations, as well as their significance on the human beings around them. For instance, it is common to deduce the use of the word in reference to communities. By illustration, healthy communities, cities such as healthy cities as well as the environment that is termed as a healthy environment (Berkowitz, 2011). All such aspects are imperative because the play a significant role in ensuring that people live and maintain a healthy lifestyle. In the United Arab Emirates, a detailed statistics in regards to health would be deduced from the WHO. The life expectancy at birth, the probability of peoples dying under the age of five, the probability of people dying between the ages of 15 to 60 years is provided. In addition, the total expenditure per capita the country devotes to health spells the status of health in the country. Just like any other country worldwide, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) regards health care as one of the most important sectors (Kloep, 2012). That explains why the government spending on it is on record to increase each year, and as a result, taking a larger portion of the gross domestic product as well as per capita expenditure. Diabetes and cancer are among the major common illnesses that the UAE are facing in recent times.
Although the UAE was associated with prodigious economic development, thanks to visionary leadership and other forms of wealth, the country struggles with a new challenge of diabetes. Without a doubt, the UAE has made notable progress in all other health sectors such as infant mortality, life expectancy and eradication of various communicable diseases making them to at par with other developed countries. In addition, the UAE has progressed rapidly in the health care facilities something that resulted to better quality, and hence, long life expectancy. Its rapid growth had been equated to the pace at which the country’s economy was growing. However, diabetics have remained a nerve-wracking to the health care department. As a result, it was rated as position 15 worldwide something that translated to over 18 percentage of the populace termed as diabetic (McLaughlin, Kemp &Stoltz, 2013).
Various factors were attributed to such high rates of diabetic in the country. For instance, the inactiveness of a large percentage of their citizens as well as poor eating routines are some of the reasons why the type 2 diabetic has been common in the health care facilities of UAE. As a result of such prevalence, the health industry in the UAE faces various impacts. To start with, accompanying illnesses such as heart diseases, obesity, and hypertension are recorded to be on the increase (McLaughlin, Kemp&Stoltz, 2013). That explains why the UAE health care was on record to have indicated that stroke is more likely to affect individuals who were affected. To the UAE, the prevalent cases of the disease do not only affect individuals, but it also affects families and the society at large. Correspondingly, the diabetic’s rampancy in the UAE is on record to have strained the economy in various ways. For instance, the government as well as the civil society and other private sectors were forced to intervene to combat the illness, something that through the channeling of large sums of money.
Such resources would have been opted applied to income generation activities by the government, hence, improving the citizen’s lives and economic status. Luckily, the UAE government is on record to have taken various measures aimed at eliminating the diabetic epidemic within the country. Such objectives it aimed at would be attainable through the private sector involvement, total behavior transformation for the UAE people, as well as the motivation of collective action by the leaders. Under such preventive actions, public sensitization was given precedence since they had to develop a positive attitude for the whole process to be termed a success. Other effective measures that the UAE had undertaking towards the eradication of the epidemic was the implementation of the fitness and nutrition programmes, disease combating measures, and flexible work-schedules that would allow employees to recreational time to avoid the obesity.
The Public Service Announcement (PSA) Commercials
The links for the three Public Service Announcement commercials selected are given below. PSA One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiLlZooQrWk
Without a doubt, the media through its various forms play a significant role in influencing the shape and perception of the public, and the three selected ones are not an exception on that regard. This commercial shapes the thinking of the public by providing intriguing statistics about the health problem. In the commercial, the author tries to explain the prevalence of diabetes in the UAE using statistics that are primarily from the health facilities in the UAE. To say the least, the primary source of data is not easy to dispute, and this gives the impression that the author not intends to whip the audience into the awareness of the disease through shocking but true revelations.
In this PSA, the author intends to use the fact to manipulate the audience. The choice of the respondent in the PSA is particularly perfect. The doctor would be in the best position to explain to the general public the importance of the menace. It is easier to believe a fact as presented by an expert even if that expert does not have the actual data to back the claims. This is since the expert has dealt with numerous cases and were in a position to make claims based on experience.
The commercial does not reflect the average ideas of diabetes as a lifestyle disease in UAE. It gives disturbing statistics that each will have to rethink his or her position with regards to the disease. The causes are quite clear in this commercial and one would be forced to look into their lifestyle to know their position on the subject.
PSA Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmgqAS0Z_fg
This commercial would appeal to the urbanite young adult population who are threatened by the health problem. In children, the commercial would not make any meaning since the terminologies that have been used by the author would not be easily deciphered by the minds of these children. The choices that lead to the problems as identified by the feature have little or no implication to the children. However, in adults, it is necessary that this the contents of this PSA are viewed with the seriousness that the author intends
The most appropriate group of adults that this commercial would appeal to are the adults that have a high income and are accessed to high calorie foods but lack the time to do some sort of exercise or activities that will reduce the fat content of the body. In this particular case the choice of the subject who is a young engineer by the author is a perfect example of the targeted audience by the author.
Basing on the information that I have gathered in the past, lifestyle anomalies affect a given class of individuals. This is due to the unique nature of the lifestyle of the people in that social class. For a perfect commercial to address this anomaly, it is important for the author to focus on the cause of the problem to directly address the group of people that are affected by the problem.
PSA Three: http://www.adcouncil.org/Our-Work/PSA-Catalog
Comparable to the first PSA, this third PSA allows a viewer to construe and comprehend the various statistics that exist in the UAE and even allows the viewer an opportunity to get more information on the topic of interest. UAE epitomes are reflected in the 3rd PSA as well. The background of the information, for instance, allows viewers to announcement was made by the UAE people but not meant for them alone. The information on the announcements is meant to give the story line about the UAE something that acts as an attraction to those that have never visited the country to view its uniqueness. Without a doubt, the PSA did disseminate the intended message mainly through the manipulation of the viewer’s emotions.
References
Berkowitz, E. N. (2011). Essentials of health care marketing. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Inspiring Changes and Improving Lives, (2014). Retrieved on 30th September 2014; from http://www.adcouncil.org/Our-Campaigns/PSA-Catalog
Kloep, M. J. (2012). Managed equipment services as a conceptual business opportunity model for the GCC with focus on UAE: An institutional and economic analysis.Burgdorf: Herz.
McLaughlin G., Kemp Jason, Stoltz Katherine, (2013).Diabetes in the UAE-Portrait of a country at risk. Retrieved on 2nd October 2014; Fromhttp://www.middleeasthealthmag.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?http://www.middleeasthealthmag.com/jan2013/feature11.htm
Statistics Centre, (2014). Retrieved on 30th September 2014; from http://www.scad.ae/en/Pages/default.aspx
The emirates center for Strategic studies and research, (2014). Retrieved on 30th September 2014; from http://www.ecssr.ac.ae/ECSSR/appmanager/portal/ecssr
