Paper Example on Importance of Health Issues Related to Cancer

Overview and Importance of Health Issue

Cancer is a disease that is proving to be the number one killer in the world. The term cancer is used for diseases which make cells divide abnormally without control and can invade other tissues (Mitchell, 2013). What cancer cells do is that they blowout to other parts of the body and this is through blood and lymph system. There are several kinds of cancer in the world. A majority of the cancer types are preventable and one of the most cost-effective long-term strategies to control cancer is through prevention. What is needed is the creation of awareness so as to reduce exposure to cancer risk factors. People need to be provided with the facts and support in order to lead a healthy lifestyle and avoid cancer (Mitchell, 2013). We have many risk factors that expose us to cancer.

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One of the greatest causes that bring cancer is tobacco. Cigarette smoking causes almost all cases of lung cancer. Smokers have higher risk exposure to cancer than non-smokers. Smoking is responsible for causing about 90% of lung cancer deaths. Smoking doesn't cause only lung cancer but other types too. Smoking causes mouth and throat, esophagus, stomach, colon, rectum, liver, pancreas, voicebox, trachea, bronchus, kidney and renal pelvis, urinary bladder, and cervix. This means that smoking exposes us to a lot of cancer (Mitchell, 2013). By avoiding tobacco we are reducing the risk factors that can expose us to cancer.

Other than smokers, we also have second-hand smokers who are also at risk of getting cancer. Second-hand smokers increase their risk of getting cancer by up to 30%. Research has shown that exposure to toxic chemicals is higher in passive smokers than active smokers. This means that the smoke exhaled by smokers has a higher concentration of toxic chemicals than the smoke inhaled by smokers. It is usually good to avoid this by making sure that passive smokers are not exposed to cigarette smoke by smokers. The importance of having a global solution for a global issue is that we need to find a solution that will help us reduce the mortality rate (Mitchell, 2013). For cancer, the fight has to be increased to avoid and reduce the number of fatalities. There are many disparities and there is a need to sort them out to make cancer treatment all inclusive. Due to these disparities, we need global solutions to help curb this disease. These disparities have been a stumbling block to the treatment of cancer globally.

The complexity of Cultural Contexts and Issues

Some of the cultural issues that affect cancer today may include poor staffing in a lot of hospitals. Cancer is very expensive to treat and as thus it causes a lot of deaths especially to people who cannot afford to get the treatment. This creates a lot of problems to a lot of the patients who have cancer. Many programs support cancer but they are not enough and most patients fail to get the required treatment. Chemotherapy sessions are very expensive and hard for people from low backgrounds (Mitchell, 2013). Lack of enough experts to handle cancer in a lot of countries is a big limit to the fight against cancer. We need to have more professionals to help in combating the disease which is a killer.

Personal Cultural Biases and Intercultural Relations

Some of the cultural biases I have is the lack of information in a lot of the people which makes them susceptible to cancer. The people who lack information expose themselves to a lot of risks and by that there is a need to increase awareness (Trill and Holland, 2013). There is cultural diversity among oncology patients and this brings about cultural sensitivity which is needed by the professionals. The professionals must know that there is cultural diversity when treating cancer patients and work on them well and better (Trill and Holland, 2013). Effective cultural awareness is based on the knowledge of the notion of culture. Among the cultural biases is the issue of negative surgical beliefs, fatalism, and mistrust which are more prevalent among the minorities and appear to give the required explanation as to why there is a high fatality. This can be seen especially in black patients where there is a lot of disparities. To help reduce this we must have interventions that target cultural factors (Trill and Holland, 2013). This will help reduce disparities. The disparities have made many of the minorities not receiving stage-appropriate cancer treatment hence increasing the fatalities.

Many of the patients and their families lack the correct information and hence they find it hard to get early treatment. Because of the many cultural beliefs some of them do not take cancer serious and thus endangering themselves every day. What I can do is to interact with the patients in a different way and by doing so I will be making it easy for them to get treatment. From different cultures, I can learn many aspects that can be of use to career (Surbone, 2008). This may be on how to handle some cultural biases in handling the disease.

Solutions to Cultural Problems

The solutions to these might be to make cancer treatment a bit cheaper so as for many people to be able to access the treatment. We need to make cancer treatment affordable to all especially the low classes. We need to find possible solutions especially in places where there are cultural barriers to the treatment of the disease (Mitchell, 2013). This can be done through strong advocacy and reach out programs.

We need to look for interventions that will address these fatalities and make it easy for the minorities to get cancer treatment at any stage thus reducing the fatality (Surbone, 2008). These cultural beliefs have been a thorn in the fight against cancer and need to have interventions that will sort them without the people feeling like they are being wrongly targeted. We need to have interventions that target cultural factors that might help us in solving the under-treatment of the minorities. This will improve in the fight against this global issue of cancer.

Cancer is the number one killer today but we can work out to prevent it. Prevention is the best solution to avoid cancer. Cancer treatment is very expensive and the best way to avoid the many cancer deaths is by preventing cancer. We can work out ourselves to make sure that we are not exposed to risk factors that cause cancer. If we can avoid some lifestyles like cigarette smoking and alcohol then we are surely reducing the chances of getting cancer. Lastly, cancer is a lifestyle disease and living a healthy lifestyle can also reduce the risk of getting cancer. We need to live healthily and eat healthy to avoid contaminating our bodies.

References

Trill, M. D., & Holland, J. (2013). Cross-cultural differences in the care of patients with cancer: a review. General hospital psychiatry, 15(1), 21-30.

Surbone, A. (2008). Cultural aspects of communication in cancer care. Supportive Care in Cancer, 16(3), 235-240.

Mitchell, J. L. (2013). Crosscultural issues in the disclosure of cancer. Cancer Practice, 6(3), 153-160.

https://www.who.int/cancer/prevention/en/https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/dcpc/prevention/index.htm