Health and Well-Being are topics that have been increasingly addressed all over the world. While most countries seem to progress towards a better lifestyle, there is a long way to go in the Middle East.
Most countries in these region, seem to be stuck in the middle ground of this tematic, evidencing a great disparity across its own region.
There are several factors that contribute towards this stagnation of Health & Well-being:
- Instability – of course, a very important factor that needs to be considered is that most countries in the Middle East are very unstable. Mostly because of continuous war and violence;
- Lack of basic necessities – the lack of basic necessities such as food and water, contributes towards the wide spreading of certain diseases, such as Cholera. Therefore, this causes a large negative effect on the Health and Well-Being of the entire population;
- War – the war factor, as mentioned above, is impacting a lot of the health care service. Mostly because this care needs to be in constant prevention, to not provoke major life losses. Hence, there’s little room to think about other health priorities.
But let’s for once think about one characteristic of that region in specific. Countries like Qatar and UAE are ranked highly in regards of PIB per capita. However, when we look into how that wealth is spent on Health and Well-Being, they are among the lowest investing countries.
This discrepancy can be a lot higher if we overlook countries in that region like Yemen or Afghanistan. These have the lowest life expectancy as they are in constant conflict, and therefore in need of medical and health care.
Most of Middle East countries, majority due to their natural resources, have some power to fight and promote these causes.
However, some changes are already taking place. Both the private and public sectors, are making improvements to assure the necessary Health and Well-Being to their populations. By adding more wellness centers and programs, they’ll be able to define a growing and safer environment. Hopefully following this course they’ll be able to promote a long term sustainability across the region.
