Hot Topics in Disease Prevention: From single cells to global health Essay

Submitted By Skalyan425
Words: 664
Pages: 3

BIOL 485A - Hot Topics in Disease Prevention: From single cells to global health

Donald Hopkins, MD, MPH:
Public Health Measures for Prevention and Control of AIDS

Questions for Paper Summary 3

1. What public health measures are being described in this article?

The main public health measures Dr.Hopkins addresses in this article are: Surveillance, Strategy, and Operation.

Briefly discuss each of these measures.
Survellience and Assesment of population health and promote and protect the health of the population:
Since we already have a system of surveillance and epidemiological anylsis in place in the united states to detect an outbreak, to define a specific syndrome or to characterize a mode of transmission of a disease as well as to recommend an effective form of prevention from that disease the surveillance of HIV and AIDS should be easy. However the bad thing about HIV is that virtually all-asymptomatic infected individuals are able to transmit the infection to others and will remain infected for as long as they live. Surveillance of the HIV/AIDS infection should be implemented using the few tools we have to ensure the best possible measures of true incedecne and prevalence of the infection among our population. We must do this by increasing public information regarding the disease, Health education and counceling and performing serologic tests for people at high risk of contracting the virus.

Strategy; Communicate effectively with the public, collaborate and empower community advocacy.
Dr.Hopkins speaks about how the public needs to listen and look for the informed recommendations from its public health and medical leaders instead of getting advice from well meaning but ill- informed people. He insists that the highest priority in preventing the spread of the virus is to provide information regarding health education and providing voluntary testing and counseling services to those who are most likely to be exposed to the infection. Continued screening of blood and tissue donors is recommended but efforts should be more focused on counseling and testing sexual partners or needle sharing partners of known infected persons. He also emphasizes that prenatal transmission of HIV is completely preventable and that any infant born with the virus is an indication of failure by the physician, parent or counselor.

Operations: Develop programs to assess risk and effectiveness of interventions, improve quality and reduce inequalities. To focus on socioeconomical prevalence of occurance among STD, Drug abuse and family planning clinics in an area that routinely offers HIV testing and counseling. Educating our youth on the spread and prevention of HIV and AIDS, the use of public opinion polls to help judge the effectiveness