Designing Preventive Health into Your Everyday
Having surpassed the grim number of 500,000 deaths in the U.S. recently, due to coronavirus, numbers for other preventable deaths each year have grabbed my attention. The 2019–2020 flu season sickened more than 38 million Americans, caused 400,000 hospitalizations and led to 22,000 deaths. And that was a light year. The 2017–2018 season saw 61,000 deaths. All told, 2020–2021 will tally a considerably smaller number of deaths from flu, largely because of the precautions we’ve taken with masks, social distancing and better hand hygiene to protect ourselves from COVID-19.
Will flu prevention be forever transformed after we’ve wrestled down the worst of COVID-19? Could tens of thousands of annual deaths plummet to hundreds in years to come because people will adopt mask-wearing in public and practice better hand hygiene throughout the season?
I wonder about this as much as I wonder if routine preventive health measures designed into our everyday living, such as the WELL building standard has the potential at scale to greatly diminish the truly shocking number of deaths recorded in the U.S. each year due to heart disease. It’s the leading killer of men and women; 660,000 deaths annually that are largely preventable with better nutrition, regular exercise, and no smoking. Globally too, heart disease is the number one killer — with ischemic heart disease alone responsible for 16% of annual deaths — and has surged the largest increase in deaths over the last two decades.
What if the media covered these routine deaths to the extent to which they have covered novel coronavirus deaths this year? Could WELL’s culture of health movement — with greater reach — the media and perhaps a major WHO global action campaign, together begin to make a dent in unhealthy personal behaviors that are in desperate need of reversal? There is truly nothing so beneficial to developing and sustaining healthy habits as having the constant reinforcement of people in your daily life practicing good health around you.
Speaking of preventable, here is a shout out to go for your annual well doctor visit this year. This is fundamental to preserving good health. While we can be highly health-knowledgeable, the steady practice of healthy behaviors is often more challenging. And life’s routine stressors, alone, can be a risk factor for heart disease later in life. Poorly managed stress can also lead to chronically high blood pressure, another risk factor for heart disease. Here’s to a healthy 2021. And being WELL.
