The hidden health effects of war. How does a war affect people’s health?
Even if humanitarian aid were to get to the people of war, their health would be forever changed.
Even though the media reports death toll numbers, more people are dying because of war.
When people are displaced during the war, they lose their lives because the daily healthcare they received before the war is no longer available. This includes people who have chronic illnesses like diabetes and hypertension.
Some people have missed enough chemotherapy that their cancer is metastasizing.
Emergency care can’t be provided to women going into labor who have infants who need a certain kind of care.
Because of destruction, there will be tools and machines that premature babies cannot access, so they will also lose their lives.
Health Effects Of War: The Environment
The environment affects everyone during a war as they are stuck in place.
There are the remains of people and pets and all sorts of things that are decaying under rubble, and decaying tissue gives off all sorts of things.
It attracts insect activity, which builds up in the environment and releases gases and bacteria. This creates a toxic space to be in and has a detrimental effect on people’s health.
Missiles, projectiles, or any explosives have a host of carcinogens in them. They, too, leak into the environment.
And as long as people stand around and within that environment, they breathe it in. They absorb it in various ways, including the water or food they eat.
Fires resulting from war give off even more carcinogens that we know are cancer-causing.
The Long-Term Health Effects Of War
When there isn’t a functional way to pull waste that humans produce away from their living spaces can result in diseases like cholera.
There’s no way to test for diseases because of the destruction caused by war.
If someone starts to develop symptoms of something, there’s no way to know what they’re experiencing. During the war, hospitals might not be functional or overwhelmed.
Also, there’s still a pandemic going on. This means that all the people seeking shelter are seeking safety together and are at risk of developing COVID-19.
These things will have a long-term effect on people’s lives.
It will shorten their lives and present other health conditions we won’t know until later.
Someone who passes away from cancer that they developed 8, 10, or 12 years later is directly related to the exposures they experienced during a violent bombardment of their home.
Adding To The Death Toll
We don’t account for the people who will take their own lives in the future because of war-related mental health issues.
There will be generational trauma passed down that can affect future generations from people in war.
War disables life and shows up as ableism. It renders a group of people considered subhuman through disabling events. It convinces people that a certain population isn’t valuable and doesn’t deserve our sympathy, empathy, or humanity.
Understanding how events like war affect us long after peace or ceasefires is essential. It is not enough to stop what is happening because long-term consequences affect us for life.
The harm and death toll a war takes is much more significant than reported.