1. World Health and Sustainability
Activity 1
World Health and Sustainability

3. Which of the following do you think most influences your health?
Genetics
Environment
Economic Status
Lifestyle
Conduct a Walking Debate. Make four signs, Genetics, Environment, Economic Status, and Lifestyle. Post the signs in four distinct areas of the room.
Clarify for students that the word environment here is not referring to the outdoors or nature, but to environmental hazards people may encounter (e.g. cigarette smoke) as well as benign or beneficial conditions (e.g. clean water).
Have students stand near the sign representing what they think most influences their health.

4. What most influences your health?
Discuss in your group the reason you made your choice.
Decide on a spokesperson to report to the class your group’s reasons for your choice.
Once all groups have reported to the class, give students the opportunity to change their opinion and move to a different area of the room.
For more information on the Walking Debate strategy see your Teacher’s Edition for this activity, and Teacher Resources III: Literacy.

5. What do you think is the leading cause of death worldwide?
Write the following categories on the board: injuries, infectious diseases, noninfectious diseases, accidents. Record the groups’ responses for each category. Leave them posted or save them to return to later in the unit.

6. Read the introduction. What are some examples of infectious diseases?
What are some examples of noninfectious diseases?
Infectious diseases are transmitted from one person to another, e.g. the flu, common cold, herpes, and HIV.
Noninfectious (or noncommunicable) diseases are not transmitted from one person to another, and are caused by such factors as the environment, genetics, and aging, e.g. heart disease, most cancers, and Alzheimer's.

7. What do health indicators show about world health and sustainability?
Challenge
What do health indicators show about world health and sustainability?

8. Sustainability is the ability to meet a community’s present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
If appropriate, introduce the cooperative learning model before students begin the Procedure. See your Teacher’s Edition for this Activity for more information on how to do this.
If appropriate, introduce the Group Interaction (GI) assessment variable before students begin the Procedure. See your Teacher’s Edition for this Activity and Teacher Resources IV: Assessment for more information on how to do this.
If appropriate, introduce the use of science notebooks before students begin the Procedure. See your Teacher’s Edition for this Activity and Teacher Resources III: Literacy for more information on how to do this.

9. Sustainability Indicator Groupings
Social
Economic
Environmental
Sample groupings for the indicators can be found in your Teacher’s Edition for this activity. Note that some indicators may fit into more than one category or none of the three categories. For example, when a high number of employed adults die or are too sick to work, they are no longer contributing to the workforce, and the productivity of the community and country is affected. Be sure to check students’ reasoning for their groupings.

10. World Health Data Sets
Emphasize that people can look at data in various ways and draw different conclusions, which is fine if they are able to explain their reasoning. Review the sample card (taken from card set 1) shown, and discuss what conclusions might be drawn by looking at this data. For example, life expectancy for females is 58. Without comparing this to data for other countries one might conclude that this is an average life expectancy, but when compared to more developed countries it is clear that this is a fairly low life expectancy.

11. World Health Data Sets 1 and 2
How did your group sort the countries based on data sets one and two?
How do the two data sets compare?
Have volunteers share how their groups sorted the two countries. Students are likely to notice that these health indicators are generally more positive for the United States, the United Kingdom, and Singapore and less positive for Ethiopia, Haiti, and Cambodia, with other countries tending to fall between these groups. See your Teacher’s Edition for this activity for more detailed information and sample groupings.

12. World Health Data Sets 1 and 2
What are some possible reasons for the high under-five mortality rate in some countries?
Is there a relationship between life expectancy and the types of diseases people in a country are dying from?
Children have less mature immune systems, which makes them more vulnerable to and more severely affected by such illnesses as diarrheal diseases and pneumonia.
Countries with shorter life expectancy have a higher incidence of infectious disease. Young children are especially likely to die of these diseases. Countries with longer life expectancies have a lower incidence of infectious disease. As people live longer they are more likely to die from noninfectious diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, and cancer.

13. World Health Data Sets 3 and 4
Is there any financial information that can help explain the risk factors for a given country?
What would you predict for the measurements for the missing indicators for some countries?
The data suggest a direct relationship between the gross national income (GNI) and prevalence of adult obese females. More details are provided in your Teacher’s Edition for this activity.
Based on similar cancer rates in Cambodia and Gabon, students may predict that tobacco use in Gabon might be higher as well and similar to Cambodia’s rate of tobacco use. For Argentina, there are a fairly low number of childhood deaths from diarrheal diseases and communicable diseases, and so access to improved sanitation is likely to be high.

14. World Health Data Sets 1 – 4
What links do you notice between the four data sets?
Are there any risk factors that are related to the incidence of disease and mortality?
An example of a link would be that lower gross national income per capita is related to increased number of years of life lost to infectious disease and vice versa. Also, lower access to improved sanitation and greater number of years of life lost due to infectious diseases.
There is a direct relationship between poor sanitation and years of life lost to infectious diseases, and between poor sanitation and diarrheal diseases.

15. What does the graph on the following slide indicate is the leading cause of death worldwide?

16. Disease and Income Level
Emphasize that countries all over the world have high incidences of disease, but the most problematic diseases differ.
Ask students the question from the beginning of the activity: What do you think is the leading cause of death worldwide? Ask them to base their answer on the graph shown. They should conclude that noninfectious diseases are the leading causes of death worldwide. Also, lower-income countries experience more deaths from all diseases compared to higher-income countries.
This image is from Cell Transparency 1.1, “Disease and Income Level.”

17. Top 10 Causes of Death by Income Level
Compare this image to what students thought would be the leading causes of death at the beginning of this activity. Ask students if there is anything that surprises them about the data. They may be surprised that coronary heart disease is a major cause of death across the board, or that HIV/AIDS is not on the list for middle- or high-income countries.
This image is from Cell Transparency 1.2, “Top 10 Causes of Death by Income Level.”

18. Top 10 Causes of Death by Income Level
Compare this image to what students thought would be the leading causes of death at the beginning of this activity. Ask students if there is anything that surprises them about the data. They may be surprised that coronary heart disease is a major cause of death across the board, or that HIV/AIDS is not on the list for middle- or high-income countries.
This image is from Cell Transparency 1.2, “Top 10 Causes of Death by Income Level.”

19. Top 10 Causes of Death by Income Level
Compare this image to what students thought would be the leading causes of death at the beginning of this activity. Ask students if there is anything that surprises them about the data. They may be surprised that coronary heart disease is a major cause of death across the board, or that HIV/AIDS is not on the list for middle- or high-income countries.
This image is from Cell Transparency 1.2, “Top 10 Causes of Death by Income Level.”

20. Compare the top 10 causes of death to what you thought were the leading causes of death at the beginning of the activity. Is there anything that surprises you about the data?

21. Analysis 1
What similarities and differences did you notice in the groupings for World Health Data Sets 1 and 2 and Sets 3 and 4?
Analysis question 1 serves as a Quick Check assessment to ensure that students can accurately interpret data from a table, and correctly identify and describe trends and relationships, which are components of the Analyzing Data scoring variable. A sample student response can be found in your Teacher’s Edition for this activity.

22. Analysis 3
How is the sustainability of a community tied to disease? Give examples of social, environmental, and economic factors in your answer.
Students’ responses to Analysis question 3 will be a good starting point for a deeper exploration of the effects of world health on sustainability, the issue for this unit.
A sample student response can be found in your Teacher’s Edition for this activity.

23. What do health indicators show about world health and sustainability?
Revisit the Challenge
What do health indicators show about world health and sustainability?
The health indicators show that countries all over the world have disease challenges, but the type, frequency, and severity of the problems differ.
See your Teacher’s Edition for this activity for more information.

24. noninfectious disease sustainability
Key Vocabulary
evidence
indicator
infectious disease
noninfectious disease
sustainability
See Teacher Resources III: Literacy for more information on key vocabulary and the most effective strategies to enhance student vocabulary learning.
Note that bold words are formally defined in this activity. Words in regular font are used in the activity, but not formally defined. The definition of a key vocabulary word should not be discussed as a class prior to the formal definition being introduced.