The Health Indicators of a Person - Essay Example

How well do the communities of the United States stack up to each other and the rest of the world? Here we will take an in-depth look at a particular metropolitan area, the Twin Cities, to browse through and compare the various health indicators and how we can improve them, as well as comparisons to other cities and countries around the world.
First and foremost, a list of the health indicators and what they mean will be included to help you, the reader, navigate through this article. Brief descriptions will accompany each heading and their meaning will be portrayed, as well as their impact on the health of the Twin Cities.
• Obesity and Physical Activity: the current levels of activity and facts about physical exercise, as well as plans to help increase community involvement to develop better practices.
• Tobacco Use: in particular about the students at the University of Minnesota, but included will be topics about the bar ban and the impact on smokers everywhere.
• Substance Abuse: in particular various comments about ecstasy and other club drugs, which are becoming an epidemic here in the Twin Cities.
• Environmental Quality: the superiority of the Twin Cities pollution levels and other ways we can help to improve our levels of environmental care.

Although the Twin Cities metro area is one of the better cities as far as health care goes (ranking among the top 50% of the metropolitan areas around the United States 1), there is still much which can be done to help out. With our government currently fumbling to provide adequate funding for Medicaid and various health services, it has come down to the responsibility of the community and raising awareness of the broadening dark horizon of healthcare that is approaching. There are a lot of gaps within the United States as well as far as healthcare access goes.