Assignment:
1. Explain the two primary approaches the government uses to reduce the number of human behavior-related deaths. What are other approaches the government can use to reduce mortality rates due to human behavior?
CLASSMATE'S POST
Education and regulation are the two ways the government has continued to work towards reducing human behavior related deaths. Throughout the years, diseases such as HIV or AIDS have left an impact on death rates in the United States. Public health officials are ever changing in ways to reach the population their serve. For instance, with the AIDs epidemic in the 1980's it was imperative to find which population was most susceptible to contracting the disease. It was found to be heavily prevalent in the gay community or more specifically in those MSM. It was found that through education with the gay community to educate on the practice of safe sex.
Regulating or imposing laws in order to prevent diseases has been done in previous years as well. Tobacco use and alcohol is a huge contributor to death rates still today even with laws in place. Through laws such as a legal drinking and smoking age, it has helped to decrease some of the effects on our youth. Labels have also been required on tobacco products to alert users to the risks of using the products. High-risk behaviors such as tobacco use can also be linked to parental influences as well, so educating parents on the risk factors for youth is also increasingly important. The government in the future will need to continue to use different tactics to combat the disease or conditions that have high death rates. For instance, drug regulation for opiate medication is crucial to preventing the spread of drug abuse-related deaths. Some states have imposed computerized systems to monitor prescriptions, but some states are still lacking and at this time the DEA is not involved in state prescription drug monitoring programs. In fact, in 2011 only 37 states had fully functioning systems.