Preventing Deaths in America

More needs to be done to prevent deaths in America, including those caused by car accidents, substance abuse, suicide, and by senseless acts of gun violence. This article explains some of the ways that Patrick R. McElhiney suggests that we tackle the issue of saving the lives of countless Americans as a nation of small communities that can address the issues locally, on an organizational level throughout the country.

Heart Disease

This health issue is the #1 leading cause of death among Americans, and can be caused by smoking, drug use, unhealthy diet, and lack of exercise. There were 635,260 deaths in America due to heart disease in 2016. We need to treat heart care like we treat the Justice Department - we know that committing a crime will result in criminal prosecution. We also know that any combination of 1) smoking, 2) drug use, 3) unhealthy diet, and 4) lack of exercise makes a person more prevalent to having a heart attack, especially in their 40's. If everyone quit smoking, refrained from taking illegal drugs, ate a healthy diet, and exercised regularly, this death statistic would go way down - yet we don't treat our health like we treat the legal system. Why is that?

We need more education early on about staying healthy, and we need more nutrition programs that help people decide what to eat. An example would be an app, released by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) that tracked food intake, and monitored for health risks based on a person's medical information. The app could recommend foods and drinks for the person that are specific to their own customized diet, and recommend exercise schedules that can be tracked with FitBit or other wearable technologies. The app could keep track of how many cigarettes a person smokes in a day, and whether they use drugs as well, although people may not be honest about their drug use with a government app. The app would be able to calculate the risks to the person's heart health based on all of the data collected, such as estimating how many years they have to live remaining based on what they are doing today, and allow them to track how that decreases or increases over time based on changes they make.

Cancer

This health issue is the second leading cause of death among Americans, and is mostly caused by tobacco use, although there are cases that are caused by heredity and environmental exposure. We could help to reduce this statistic by printing graphics on cigarettes and vaping supplies that show the insides of someone's organs after they have consumed a lifetime's worth of nicotine and other harmful chemicals that are in tobacco products. It may take some time before there are photographs of a person's body due to vaping, however vaping is just as bad as smoking cigarettes, as far as leading to cancer. There were 598,038 deaths of Americans in 2016 due to cancer. Patrick has lost many family members to cancer, due to them smoking for a lifetime. You have to remember - it's never too late to stop smoking! The benefits of quitting are immediate, although the cancer prevalence takes around 6 months to start to decrease.

Patrick also thinks that stronger laws to protect the health of communities around factories, such as plastic producing factories that use BPA, because exposure to carcinogenic compounds leads to cancer. There should also be stronger laws protecting the public from cancer causing substances like Round-Up. We need to stop protecting Monsanto and realize that we need to ban Round-Up like we banned asbestos in the 1980's, and there are other products and manufacturing processes that also need to be banned because of their carcinogenic properties that are prevalent to causing cancer.

Accidents

Unintentional injuries leading to death was the #3 cause of deaths among Americans in 2016, totalling 161,374 fatalities. These include car crashes and other types of fatal accidents. One of the leading causes of automobile accidents is drunk driving, which we can stop by requiring that all cars be outfitted with technology that requires the driver to blow into a system that detects their blood alcohol level, before the car can turn on. Another way to protect the public would be with self-driving cars, or with cars that can detect the properties of the way someone looks in the face when they are drunk or too tired to drive. We need to do more to protect drivers from fatal accidents. There's no legitimate reason for this many deaths due to accidents that for the most part could entirely be prevented due to technological advances.

We also need to take road safety seriously, including driving in the snow or other severe weather. Accidents are more serious due to snow or other low-visibility conditions, which could be prevented with newer technologies in vehicles that can detect upcoming slowing or rapidly stopping traffic, or pedestrians or animals in the road. Patrick almost hit a moose one day when he was driving from Dover to Barrington during the night. If he had hit the moose, it probably would have fallen directly on his car, smashing him inside. Luckily Patrick was very alert, as usual, and stopped abruptly - even though it was foggy and the visibility was low.

Drowning is the top cause of death of children ages 1-4, which can be prevented by ensuring that there is always someone watching the child while they are swimming. Patrick didn't learn how to swim until he was much older, and he nearly drowned once while swimming in the backyard of a family member when he ended up in the deep end of the pool without a life vest. Luckily, his swimming skills kept him moving, and he eventually got to the edge of the pool and got out. Children aren't as agile as older children or adults, and they need special care when they are in and around water.

Other Leading Causes of Death: