Final Argumentative Essay Progress
Review your classmate post and respond to your peer, response to your classmate, offer some other solutions to the global societal issue that weren't already addressed.
Discussion response
The societal issue I chose to research is Adult Illiteracy. My thesis statement is: Adult illiteracy does have a negative impact on society because a lot of taxpayer's money goes into programs like welfare and low-cost health insurance for these individuals. It is our ethical duty to provide the help these individuals need by creating more programs that will help illiterate adults.
I believe that further research on this topic is important to find ways to help individuals who are illiterate, and in creating more programs for illiterate adults. The issue is that there are many programs that help children of school age to help read but for adults there are only a handful, especially very few low-cost or free programs which these individuals would most likely need. This societal issue impacts population differently in many countries.
In the US for example, it means more money has to be put into programs like welfare and low healthcare because most illiterate adults need these programs because they don't make enough money on their own since they're unable to get a higher job. In Africa, the population is affected differently.
Since most adults are illiterate the country is considered a third world country because the adults do not have jobs that will better their country to compete with other countries in the world. Billek-Sawhney, B., & Reicherter, E. A. (2005).
Literacy and the Older Adult. Topics In Geriatric Rehabilitation, 21(4), 275. Billek-Sawhney and Reicherter state "Approximately 90 million people, or 47% of all American adults, have problems in accessing, reading, understanding, and utilizing healthcare Information.**
Estimated to increase healthcare expenditures by $73 billion annually, low health literacy is related to longer hospital stays, ineffective prescription use, or treatment adherence" (pg.275).
I found this statistic interesting because I wouldn't expect that much of the American population to have literacy problems. It is also surprising how much money is spent on healthcare because of illiteracy since these adults are not able to understand the doctor instructions.
GEN 499: General Education Text: Bhargava, V. K. (2006). Introduction to global issues. In V. K. Bhargava (Ed.), Global issues for global citizens: An introduction to key development challenges