Ghana Health Issues

When investigating health priorities of Ghana, the first approach is to look at the burden of disease. This takes into consideration disability-adjusted life years (DALY), years of life lost from premature mortality (YLL) and years of healthy life lost due to disability. Because burden of disease takes into considerations health outcomes that cause premature death and disability it is a key area to target interventions. Specifically, for Ghana, this includes nutritional deficiency, HIV, and Malaria. This was used as these are the diseases that cause the highest among of disability a crucial factor to take into consideration when determining where priorities need to be. Malnutrition is a major source of burden and is a cause of ill health with

MDG’s are a commitment that UN states pledged to attain these goals by 2015 to improve health. Because this is a serious commitment it illustrates the importance of achieving these goals and the specific domains that need to be improved. When using MDGs as a criteria for determining the top health problems the major health concerns that are discussed include maternal mortality, infant mortality and HIV. Maternal and neonatal mortality are health outcomes Ghana has been struggling to decrease therefore making these Millennial Development Goals a well-suited criteria to capture the health profile of Ghana and where the largest improvements need to be made. It also represents key clear and concise goals easy for communicating areas that need improvement however is a broader category making developing plan of action more

Under this criteria, top health priorates included lack of effective and accessible services, lack of water and sanitation, and high rates of poverty leading to poor living and working conditions. This criteria addresses the crucial social and environment factors that are often not address by other criteria such as top cause of mortality. This type of criteria draws out the social inequalities and inequities of the health system and the multiple and complex social systems that often contribute to adverse health effects for those who are disadvantaged by socioeconomic factors such as poverty and poor living conditions (Moyer et al.,2014). Many of these factors have substainal implications for health with many developing health conditions due to their environment and inability to afford to better the situation (Moyer et al.,2014). Many do not have access to clean water or improved sanitation facilities with only 15% having access in 2015 (WHO,2018). This has serious health implication not only for nutrition and diarrheal disease but for other infectious disease from the spread of bacteria and viruses due to poor