Endemic is a term used by health workers and organizations to describe a disease, disorder, or other issue that exists at a pretty constant rate for a long period of time within a population. Diseases that are endemic to given regions can result in a consistently high number of deaths year after year.
Archive for the ‘Levels’ Category
Endemic is…
Thursday, October 29th, 2009Birth Rate is…
Thursday, October 29th, 2009Birth rate is a measure of how many babies are born relative to the population of a given area – city, country, continent, or whatever. Like infant mortality rate, it’s usually expressed as a number out of 1,000 (x/1,000). Poorer, less educated populations of people tend to have higher birth rates.
A Developing Country is…
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009A developing country in general is a country that has low levels of industrialization and low standards of living. While there is no universally accepted means of determining the dividing line between a developing and developed country, statistical measurements like standard of living, GDP per capita, life expectancy, industrialization, and literacy rate among others all help determine a country’s classification. That being said, not all developing countries are the same. Some have relatively high standards of living, but low life expectancy rates while others are the complete opposite.
Family Planning is…
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009Family planning is the ability to choose the number of children in a family and the space of time between births. Women in many countries do not have these options either because of a lack of resources or their rights are restricted. Family planning is an important component to improving women’s health as well as creating more stable and successful families.
Human Trafficking is…
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009Human trafficking is when people, usually poor or otherwise vulnerable people, are taken captive and exploited. They are often transported far from home and treated as slaves or forced into hard labor or prostitution. Most of these helpless people are women and children who are subject to brutal living conditions. Human trafficking is a major international problem with estimates of the number of trafficked people ranging between 500,000 to 4,000,000 a year.
Greenhouse Gases are…
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009Greenhouse gases are thought to be a major culprit in global warming. Gases including carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and even water vapor, trap heat from the sun and make the Earth warmer – just like glass in a greenhouse traps heat and makes the air inside warmer. These gases exist naturally in the atmosphere, but human activities have increased their concentrations and subsequent air warming to a level that could potentially have disastrous climactic effects.
Natural Resources are…
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009Natural Resources are materials that are produced by or derived from the environment and used by people for many different purposes – things like energy production, building, and food. The environment provides natural resources that are essential to life like pure air, light, clean water, and food as well as the basic inputs to our industrial societies like wood, oil, gas, iron, and land.
Belgium but not Britain? Doesn’t Euro mean Europe?
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009If you traveled through Europe before 2002, you probably had a lot of fun juggling the different currencies and their crazy exchange rates. You could spend 20 francs on a coffee in Paris and then in Italy it would cost 5000 lira – a bit confusing. But today, you’ll pay for that coffee in Italy and in France with the same bill: the euro.
Even though it’s called the euro after (you guessed it) Europe, its name is a little misleading. There are 45 countries in Europe but only 27 of them have joined the European Union. Out of those 27, only 16 use the euro as their official currency. That’s means only about 1/3 of Europe actually uses the euro! Why so few though?
There are several reasons why:
- You have to be a member of the European Union to adopt the euro as your currency. There are 18 countries who don’t belong, including Switzerland (which geographically is the center of Europe).
- You must follow strict financial guidelines to be allowed to have the euro; some countries (like Poland) have yet to meet them.
- Lastly, you have to want it. Some countries like Britain, Denmark, and Sweden don’t want the euro as their official currency. (If Mexico wanted us to jointly adopt the same currency, we probably would say no as well because of the effect Mexico’s weaker economy would have on our own.)
As Europe continues to loosen the national borders that divide it, the Euro will continue to be adopted by more and more countries. Probably soon, you won’t remember what it was like to carry 20 different currencies in your pocket while visiting only one continent.