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Epidemiology. Disease Burden in Miami-Dade County
Healthy People 2020 is 10-year goals and objectives by the US Department of Health and Human Services seeking to promote health among Americans and prevent the spread of diseases. It was unveiled in 2010, and it has various objectives and topics that are specifically created to increase public awareness concerning different diseases coupled with the identification of areas for health improvement, and involve different stakeholders to find lasting solutions to the Americans health. The topics covered in Healthy People 2020 include access to healthcare services, global health, cancer, HIV, public health infrastructure, and tobacco. However, the majority of conditions continue to affect people disproportionately across the country. The purpose of this paper is to discuss three conditions (HIV, tobacco, and Tuberculosis) that affect people in Miami-Dade County, Florida (Zip Code: 33101), to highlight their impact on the identified community coupled with giving a plan of action for their containment according to Healthy People 2020.
Impact on Community
Miami-Dade is one of the areas with the highest number of HIV cases across the US. According to AIDSVu (2020), currently, over 25,600 people are living with HIV in Miami-Dade County. Rutstein et al. (2017) argue that treating and taking care of people with HIV places a huge burden on public health systems. In addition, those with HIV experience poor quality of life, which means they might not contribute optimally to society in terms of participating in productive and community-building ventures, such as providing the much-needed labor force in various sectors or engaging in entrepreneurial activities. HIV is also a risk factor to many different health conditions and a leading cause of mortality and morbidity, and thus the community suffers greatly due to the disease burden associated with it.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2019) cited Miami-Dade County and the larger Florida as some of the places that experience measles outbreak. According to Coughlin et al. (2017), measles outbreaks are serious implications for the affected communities. First, it is costly to manage an outbreak because it is resource-intensive. For instance, it requires the mobilization of various resources including human capital, vaccines, infrastructural requirements, and personnel hours among other related factors. Especially in areas where most people are not vaccinated against the same, the outbreaks are severe, which means they have highly damaging effects. Additionally, affected individuals have poor health outcomes and quality of life.
Tobacco use is another major problem affecting Miami-Dade County. According to Bonnie et al. (2015), the scope of the burden of mortality and morbidity associated with tobacco use is extensive, which makes it a major public health concern. First, smoking is a risk factor to many non-communicable and chronic diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular complications, cancer, and obesity among other related health conditions. This assertion means that it is costly to address the effects of tobacco use in any society due to the associated health problems. As such, community public health resources are strained in the process of addressing widespread tobacco use. Additionally, a sickly community is disadvantaged in many ways, such as the lack of meaningful contribution to societal wellbeing.
How the Conditions are Identified
One of the major objectives of Healthy People 2020 is to identify diseases and create the most effective and feasible way of addressing them. Therefore, the healthcare system is designed in a way to enable the collection of data concerning various health conditions. In case of an outbreak, such as that of measles, healthcare officials ensure that such incidents are addressed before they could spread and cause extensive damage to the affected communities. The US healthcare system uses an elaborate system involving disease surveillance of diseases based on lab reports or reported incidents.
Containment Action Plan
According to Healthy People 2020 (2020), the goal of the HIV objective is to prevent new infections of HIV, its spread together with related conditions, and death. This goal is achieved in various ways. The first step is to minimize new infections by reducing the number of new infections across all the age groups and sexual orientation. This involves creating awareness about how the disease is spread and how it could be controlled. The second step entails increasing HIV testing coupled with rolling out plans to prevent risky behaviors. Early testing allows for timely intervention before the disease could progress, which increases the chances of living healthily with it. Finally, Healthy People 2020 seeks to increase access to care services to facilitate early testing and intervention hence promoting health outcomes for those living with HIV.
Measles outbreaks pose a serious threat to the wellbeing of the affected people, and thus Healthy People 2020 has created an elaborate mechanism of dealing with such incidents. The starting point of containing measles outbreaks is elaborate surveillance. This system ensures that the first case of an outbreak is reported within the shortest time possible after it has been confirmed through laboratory testing. Surveillance is heightened to assess the extent of the outbreak and identify the affected areas. Within the next 2 days, case investigation is conducted to identify those who might have been exposed to the outbreak to collect all the relevant data, such as immunization and other related information. Those infected without prior immunization are immunized, while the rest are given prophylaxis. Continued monitoring is carried out to assess the situation and take the appropriate actions. Finally, the WHO has to be notified of such outbreaks for improved surveillance.
The main goal of managing tobacco use is ensure low incidence rates of diseases associated with this practice and reduce morbidity and mortality rates coupled with minimal exposure to secondhand smoke. The strategy used to achieve this goal is the reduction of tobacco use by both adults and adolescents and lower the initiation of tobacco use among children. Healthy People 2020 also seeks to increase smoking cessation by those already using it. In addition, tobacco screening in healthcare settings is increased together with counseling activities. Exposure to secondhand smoke exposure is enhanced through various relevant laws in different set-ups, such as public spaces, schools, and work environments.
Conclusion
Disease burden on communities has major impacts, especially the straining of public health resources. In Miami-Dade County, HIV, measles outbreak, and tobacco use are some of the public health problems that continue to affect communities. Healthy People 2020 has created elaborate plans to address all these problems among many other health conditions that affect people in the US. Despite the current efforts to tackle these conditions, a lot has to be done to ensure healthy communities. HIV, tobacco use, and measles outbreak require extensive public awareness because they require the full participation of people for effective management and intervention.
References
AIDSVu. (2020). Local data: Miami (Miami-Dade County). Web.
Bonnie, R. J., Stratton, K., & Kwan, L. Y. (Eds.). (2015). Public health implications of raising the minimum age of legal access to tobacco products. National Academies Press.
CDC. (2019). Current outbreak list. Web.
Coughlin, M. M., Beck, A. S., Bankamp, B., & Rota, P. A. (2017). Perspective on global measles epidemiology and control and the role of novel vaccination strategies. Viruses, 9(11), 1-17.
Healthy People. 2020 topics and objectives. Web.
Rutstein, S. E., Ananworanich, J., Fidler, S., Johnson, C., Sanders, E. J., Sued, O., Saez-Cirion, A., Pilcher, C. D., Fraser, C., Cohen, M. S., Vitoria, M., Doherty, M., & Tucker, J. D. (2017). Clinical and public health implications of acute and early HIV detection and treatment: A scoping review. Journal of the International AIDS Society, 20(1), 21579.
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