Community Health of Children and Adolescents in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Health is central to the development of any country. Despite the efforts and goodwill of the United Nations, the goals established have not been successfully achieved and people in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) continue to strive with the same burdens of poverty, employment, malnutrition or hunger, inequality, environmental crisis, access to energy, conflicts and injustice. All these determinants drawback factors may be cause or consequence of a never-ending cycle with enormous impact on individual and community health. In SSA, policy makers, donors, healthcare providers, and academics have paid less attention to chronic diseases than to acute, communicable diseases. Despite severe dysfunctions, Public Health in this region, distinct from immediate medical services, is now engaged in endless struggles, against pathogens, modelling human behaviors, and searching for financing. Parental education, health and welfare, substandard literacy and language communication, access to material assets and other factors may all affect their ability to interpret hazards and risks in key areas of health and nutrition. While some 70% of deaths in Africa result from infectious and parasitic diseases, mortality rates from chronic diseases are higher in SSA than in other parts of the world. Children and adolescents in SSA in their livelihoods experience slow physical growing, inadequate observation and physical development, and a series of biological impairments that amplifies their risk of non-communicable diseases as they mature. Integrated strategies of sound health leadership and community-adapted initiatives are needed and probably engaged constructively with the private sector. Some ambitious new health goals take longer to achieve, but progress can be achieved in stages.