Questões de Inglês

Lives Grow Longer, and Health Care’s Challenges Change
Jeremy N. Smith
July 16, 2015

 

   If you’re living with multiple ailments, you’re not alone. According to an analysis published last month in the British medical journal The Lancet, 2.3 billion people, almost one-third of humanity, suffered from five or more health problems in 2013. More than 80 percent of those people were younger than 65 years old. And between 1990 and 2013, the number of people in developed countries who suffered from 10 or more ailments increased by 52 percent.
     These figures, based on some 36,000 sources of health data gathered for an international study called the Global Burden of Disease, are only approximate. But they provide the most complete picture yet of a global population’s need for increasingly complex care. Two or three generations ago, communicable diseases and problems in pregnancy and early childhood were the leading health concerns in all but the wealthiest countries. Now, after decades of economic development, rising aid money for health, and medical advances, these problems predominate only in sub-Saharan Africa, and life expectancy averages 71 years worldwide. But progress carries a price: The longer people live, the more health problems – and simultaneous health problems – they tend to suffer.
    The most common ailments worldwide include irondeficiency anemia, hearing loss, low back pain and diabetes, each affecting more than 400 million people, according to the study. How many health clinics, charities, governments or global public health agencies are prepared to diagnose and treat a deaf person suffering from diabetes, anemia and low back pain, for decades? “The transition in terms of illness patterns has happened very quickly, but the health system transition has not,” said Dr. Rifat Atun, director of the global health systems cluster at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “We have individuals from a very young age living with an illness, disease or disability for 30, 40, or 50 years – and they will have not just one, but multiple conditions, and multiple consequences of these conditions. And health systems are not really set up to manage this.”
    In low - and middle - income countries, aid efforts and government programs still concentrate almost exclusively on communicable diseases and problems of pregnancy and early childhood, though close to 75 percent of deaths in these countries are now caused by noncommunicable diseases and injuries. Even in wealthy countries, most funding goes to those diseases and injuries that kill people rather than much more common conditions that cause long-term illness and disability. And maladies are usually addressed one by one, if at all, rather than as a cluster.
    India, where life expectancy at birth is now 66 years old, exemplifies all these trends. Deaths from tuberculosis, pneumonia, diarrheal diseases and preterm birth complications have all fallen sharply – in total, these diseases today kill fewer than 2 million Indians annually, according to Global Burden estimates. Meanwhile, in 2013, approximately 239 million Indians were migraine sufferers, 60 million had diabetes, 37 million had anxiety disorders and 26 million had osteoarthritis. Yet people with these conditions – and often all of them at once – have gotten little aid or attention. …
    Karl Hofmann’s nonprofit, PSI, which supports 15,000 health care providers in 65 countries, has expanded its offerings in the last decade to include screenings for hypertension, cervical cancer and gender-based violence along with childhood vaccinations and family planning services. Still, Mr. Hofmann observed, someone entering even the best health clinic or hospital with multiple chronic sources of disability is unlikely to have all of his or her conditions addressed comprehensively – in India or in the United States. “The transcendent challenge in the coming decades is trying to deal with the human reality of the health consumer, or patient, rather than the vertical, disease-specific issues.”
    The longer the status quo continues, the greater the cost – both human and financial. “This is a major societal challenge,” said Dr. Atun of Harvard. “It puts pressure on not just the health systems, but also the entire economy.” Given how many people are suffering from simultaneous health problems, and the resultant loss of productivity to society, “the issue is not whether or not, but how rapidly can we transition health systems,” he concluded.
    Policy makers, public health professionals and physicians can take inspiration from their remarkable past triumphs. Globally, age-standardized death rates fell 24 percent between 1990 and 2013. If new programs can reduce nonfatal ailments at the same rate over the next two decades, billions of people will benefit for a lifetime.
(www.nytimes.com. Adapted.)

The second paragraph points out to the fact that

Lives Grow Longer, and Health Care’s Challenges Change
Jeremy N. Smith
July 16, 2015

 

   If you’re living with multiple ailments, you’re not alone. According to an analysis published last month in the British medical journal The Lancet, 2.3 billion people, almost one-third of humanity, suffered from five or more health problems in 2013. More than 80 percent of those people were younger than 65 years old. And between 1990 and 2013, the number of people in developed countries who suffered from 10 or more ailments increased by 52 percent.
     These figures, based on some 36,000 sources of health data gathered for an international study called the Global Burden of Disease, are only approximate. But they provide the most complete picture yet of a global population’s need for increasingly complex care. Two or three generations ago, communicable diseases and problems in pregnancy and early childhood were the leading health concerns in all but the wealthiest countries. Now, after decades of economic development, rising aid money for health, and medical advances, these problems predominate only in sub-Saharan Africa, and life expectancy averages 71 years worldwide. But progress carries a price: The longer people live, the more health problems – and simultaneous health problems – they tend to suffer.
    The most common ailments worldwide include irondeficiency anemia, hearing loss, low back pain and diabetes, each affecting more than 400 million people, according to the study. How many health clinics, charities, governments or global public health agencies are prepared to diagnose and treat a deaf person suffering from diabetes, anemia and low back pain, for decades? “The transition in terms of illness patterns has happened very quickly, but the health system transition has not,” said Dr. Rifat Atun, director of the global health systems cluster at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “We have individuals from a very young age living with an illness, disease or disability for 30, 40, or 50 years – and they will have not just one, but multiple conditions, and multiple consequences of these conditions. And health systems are not really set up to manage this.”
    In low - and middle - income countries, aid efforts and government programs still concentrate almost exclusively on communicable diseases and problems of pregnancy and early childhood, though close to 75 percent of deaths in these countries are now caused by noncommunicable diseases and injuries. Even in wealthy countries, most funding goes to those diseases and injuries that kill people rather than much more common conditions that cause long-term illness and disability. And maladies are usually addressed one by one, if at all, rather than as a cluster.
    India, where life expectancy at birth is now 66 years old, exemplifies all these trends. Deaths from tuberculosis, pneumonia, diarrheal diseases and preterm birth complications have all fallen sharply – in total, these diseases today kill fewer than 2 million Indians annually, according to Global Burden estimates. Meanwhile, in 2013, approximately 239 million Indians were migraine sufferers, 60 million had diabetes, 37 million had anxiety disorders and 26 million had osteoarthritis. Yet people with these conditions – and often all of them at once – have gotten little aid or attention. …
    Karl Hofmann’s nonprofit, PSI, which supports 15,000 health care providers in 65 countries, has expanded its offerings in the last decade to include screenings for hypertension, cervical cancer and gender-based violence along with childhood vaccinations and family planning services. Still, Mr. Hofmann observed, someone entering even the best health clinic or hospital with multiple chronic sources of disability is unlikely to have all of his or her conditions addressed comprehensively – in India or in the United States. “The transcendent challenge in the coming decades is trying to deal with the human reality of the health consumer, or patient, rather than the vertical, disease-specific issues.”
    The longer the status quo continues, the greater the cost – both human and financial. “This is a major societal challenge,” said Dr. Atun of Harvard. “It puts pressure on not just the health systems, but also the entire economy.” Given how many people are suffering from simultaneous health problems, and the resultant loss of productivity to society, “the issue is not whether or not, but how rapidly can we transition health systems,” he concluded.
    Policy makers, public health professionals and physicians can take inspiration from their remarkable past triumphs. Globally, age-standardized death rates fell 24 percent between 1990 and 2013. If new programs can reduce nonfatal ailments at the same rate over the next two decades, billions of people will benefit for a lifetime.
(www.nytimes.com. Adapted.)

According to the text,

After registering to use the site, users can create a user profile, add other users as “friends”, exchange messages, post status updates and photos, share videos and receive notifications when others update their profiles. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organized by workplace, school or college, or other characteristics, and categorize their friends into lists such as “People From Work” or “Close Friends”. This app had over 1.18 billion monthly active users as of August 2015. Because of the large volume of data users submit to the service, the app has come under scrutiny for their privacy policies. It held its initial public offering in February 2012 and began selling stock to the public three months later, reaching an original peak market capitalization of $104 billion. On July 13, 2015, it became the fastest company in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to reach a market cap of $250 billion.

The text above is probably describing

www.turmadamonica.uol.com.br

According to the cartoon,

According to the lyrics to the song Fire and Rain by James Taylor above,

Science Without Borders Program to be Suspended
09/03/2015 - 09H02
VALDO CRUZ
FLÁVIA FOREQUE

 

Owing to lack of funds, the Planalto Palace has decided to suspend the offer of new scholarships as part of the program Science Without Borders for next year.
As Folha has learnt, the budget defined by the government’s economic team for next year, a total of R$2.1 billion (USD $559 million), is only enough to cover students who are already living abroad on the program.
The Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Students (CAPES, in its Portuguese acronym) said that the designated resources would be used to “pay for 13,330 scholarships amongst undergraduates and postgraduates” in 2016, under its supervision.
The National Council of Scientific and Technological Development (CNPQ), another government agency that encourages research, will be allocated resources for another 22,610 scholarships.
In total, both institutions will send 14,050 undergraduates abroad in the second semester of this year. This group of students enters the program under last year’s selection process. Undergraduates account for the majority of those enrolled in the program, with 79.5% of the scholarships granted.
Advisors to President Rousseff have admitted that the government was considering an even harsher cut to the program, but the idea was rejected owing to the likely negative effects it would produce.
The cut for Science Without Borders next year is 40.3% from last year’s budget of R$3.5 billion (USD $931 million). Cutting just one percentage point more would mean disrupting the studies of those who have already been selected and left for university abroad.
Launched in July 2011, the program has become one of President Rousseff’s flagship policies. After the creation of 101,000 places by last year, the promise for her second term was to create another 100,000.
The high value of the dollar, however, has drastically increased the cost of program. The program pays foreign universities for the tuition of Brazilian students, as well as providing maintenance grants to the students themselves.

While in July 2011 the dollar was worth R$1.55, now the exchange rate is close to R$3.70. There is currently no date defined for the call of new applications to the program. Last year, the selection process began in August.
The current expectation is that if the government allocates more funds for the program next year, the main focus will be postgraduates. Questioned on this, Capes would not comment.
The agency said, “All the Ministry of Education programs will be maintained” in 2016. “The Ministry is conducting a detailed analysis of the budget in order to determine the scope of the programs for next year,” it said in a statement.

 

PRONATEC
If Science Without Borders is suspended in 2016, another federal education program will be significantly expanded next year, according to the budget provisions.
In 2016, the government is expected to offer five million places on technical courses and on the National Program of Access to Technical Education and Employment (PRONATEC), both for those enrolling in the program as well as those continuing their training.
This year, thanks to budget cuts, the numbers of offered places on the program fell to nearly a million, 66.6% less than the three million in 2014. Added to the cost of covering those already enrolled, the total cost of the program in 2015 is R$4 billion (USD $1.1 billion).
After hitting its target of enrolling eight million students, the government’s aim was to enroll 12 million new students in its second term. If 2016’s targets are reached, the government will achieve exactly 50% of the target in the first two years of its second term.

The sentence “If Science Without Borders is suspended, another federal education program will be significantly expanded” written in the third conditional form is