Disease Surveillance Program: Hepatitis A Awareness

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Table of Contents

Disease Surveillance Program
Disease Description
The Affected Population
The Diseases Surveillance Program
Health Organization Suited for the Program Launch
Program Communication Plan
References

Disease Surveillance Program

Inadequate environmental protection efforts encourage disease transmission and require active surveillance programs to promote disease treatment and prevention. Such neighborhoods report numerous infectious diseases due to the virus and bacteria infestation through body fluids, contaminated surfaces, and disease vectors. Hepatitis A is among the most prevalent vaccine-preventable diseases in the United States (Edemekong & Huang, 2021). It is transmitted from one person to another through poor hand hygiene, oral sexual contact, and contaminated water, diapers, or food. The disease’s ease of spread requires health organizations to formulate a disease surveillance program and communication plan to educate and empower the affected population to understand their role in upholding community wellness.

Disease Description

Hepatitis A is a highly transmissible disease that spreads through fecal-oral transmission from direct person-to-person contact or through contaminated surfaces and disease vectors. After the virus attack, the body attempts to fight it for two weeks, then the patients report significant symptoms, particularly stool concentration. The symptomatic stage commences with fever, jaundice, hepatomegaly, malaise, and abdominal pains commonly reported (Edemekong & Huang, 2021). Since the disease spreads through contaminated surfaces, people should improve their immediate and external surroundings’ hygiene to limit its prevalence. Hepatitis A is prevented through immunization, which requires parents to ensure children get vaccinations against it. The vaccination against Hepatitis A in the United States was licensed in 1995, which resulted in a tremendous reduction in the spread (Hofmeister et al., 2020). Despite the available vaccination programs, its quick spread and some parents’ reluctance to vaccinate their children promote transmission and circulation in some neighborhoods.

The Affected Population

Although Hepatitis A can spread in any geographical area, depending on the neighborhoods’ hygiene and vaccination programs, some regions report disease outbreaks that cause hospital congestion and require quick attention. For example, the spread in Kentucky in 2017 posed a significant healthcare threat to the population due to its rapid transmission in the busy neighborhoods (Kenning, 2019). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention records, Kentucky registered 57 deaths and represented a third of the casualty during the virus attack. The disease majorly affects the homeless and drug users due to their power hygiene and exposure to harsh environmental conditions. Additionally, homeless and drug users and less likely to get vaccines, which encourages the disease to spread (Kenning, 2019). These challenges require an active surveillance program that understands a region’s demographic records to understand and solve various community members’ challenges.

The Diseases Surveillance Program

An infectious disease surveillance program assesses the disease epidemiology to establish the health care, social, and economic burdens on the community. It defines the current burden, investigates trends, and identifies outbreaks. Hepatitis A imposes health care and social challenges on Kentucky residents in impoverished neighborhoods with poor hygiene. The marginalized areas with poor terrain and infrastructure cannot access immunization services, which encourages the disease to spread. Over the last decades, the disease has shown a considerable rise in prevalence by approximately 12.2% (Edemekong & Huang, 2021). The rise resulted from outbreaks in different parts of the United States. The state government should coordinate healthcare awareness programs to encourage community participation to support the disease prevention programs.

Health Organization Suited for the Program Launch

The effective integration of a disease surveillance program requires proper coordination with health organizations that understand the community and healthcare approaches for promoting wellness. This project selects CDC and USAID as the ideal health organizations to promote community health. CDC often engages in community empowerment programs through campaigns involving Americans of different age brackets, depending on their course. The organization has numerous partners who fund its operations to facilitate program success. On the other hand, USAID integrates literacy and empowerment programs to advance community members’ knowledge of particular diseases and support environmental sustainability (USAID, 2019). These approaches are valuable in fighting Hepatitis A since Kentucky residents should integrate teams that focus on community hygiene and empowerment of the homeless residents to increase their participation in the community health improvement programs. The collaborative efforts between the two organizations will facilitate program success.

Program Communication Plan

The ideal communication plan that encourages public participation involves face-to-face interaction, designing banners, and creating posters. The health organization will commence the exercise by creating posters and banners concerning Hepatitis A prevention measures. Although posters enable the community health program administrators to reach a broad audience, the members will not react swiftly to the invitation, which requires motivation and illustration of the program to raise the interest to participate. The organizations will select group leaders to interact with the community members through face-to-face communication to establish a rapport and convince them to attend the meeting. They will define the community members’ roles in elevating hygiene to encourage their involvement in the community development plans (USAID, 2019). After reaching out to some members, the organizations will create three social media platforms to increase the area coverage and motivate people to participate. Overall, community empowerment supports the disease prevention program, which requires collaboration and shared interest in eliminating diseases and improving wellness.

References

Edemekong, P.F., & Huang B. (2021). Epidemiology of prevention of communicable diseases. StatPearls Publishing.

Hofmeister, M.G., Xing, J., Foster, M.A., Augustine, R.J., Burkholder, C., Collins, J., McBee, S., Thomasson, E.D., Thoroughman, D., Weng, M.K., & Spradling, P.R. (2020). Hepatitis A person-to-person outbreaks: Epidemiology, morbidity burden, and factors associated with hospitalization—multiple states, 2016–2019. Journal of Infectious Diseases, 223(1), 426–434.

Kenning, C. (2019). Kentucky racks up one-third of all Hepatitis A deaths in US as fatalities keep rising. Courier Journal.

USAID. (2019). Literacy & community empowerment program.

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