Epidemiology in Public and Global Health Essay Assignment
Summary of the Selected Article
The article selected is, “H.I.V. Infections Remain Persistently High, U.N. Reports.” As reported in the article, the rates of HIV infections and deaths have proliferated over the last few years. When the world focused on the surge in the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukrainian war, over 1.5 million people succumbed to HIV-AIDS, which is roughly three times the global target as reported by the United Nations (Mandavilli, 2022). In 2021, there were over 650,000 people who died following the virus, which is approximately one in every minute. Based on the statistics by the United Nations, most of the new infections affected young women and adolescents, which had to bear with the disproportionate share of disease burden. In Africa, 31% of young people had newly acquired HIV virus while in Asia and Pacific regions, the infections were also rising despite progress been made over the last few years that lowered the number of new infections (Mandavilli, 2022). The numbers show some concern for the new infections and the need to put in more effort to lower and curtail the spread of HIV infections. Epidemiology in Public and Global Health Essay Assignment
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Epidemiological Triangle of HIV-AIDS
An epidemiologic the triangle consists of an agent responsible for causing a disease or infection, a target host susceptible to an infection, and an environment that triggers disease transmission (Fauk et al., 2022). Accordingly, Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is the causative agent for AIDS disease. The most common form of HIV agent is HIV-1, which is an agent that has led to the spread of AIDS pandemic worldwide due to its highly infectious nature (Fauk et al., 2022). The second agent is HIV-2, which is less common, but yields clinical findings that are the same to those of HIV-1 (Fauk et al., 2022). The HIV-1 type has different subtypes that are distributed differently in society, but produce AIDS in the same way. HIV is a form of retrovirus containing only of Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) from a virus in a blood sample (Fauk et al., 2022). Thus, RNA test is done to confirm the presence of this genetic material in a blood sample about 9-11 days after a person is infected. Epidemiology in Public and Global Health Essay Assignment
A human is the host of the HIV virus, meaning that the virus affects humans. Mainly, humans are the host since the HIV virus targets white blood cells that contain the T lymphocytes, popularly known as the CD4+ T cells (Fauk et al., 2022). The cells play an integral role in the immune system and help in activating the response of the different immune cells. The T cells become infected with HIV and die. After an infection, the body can effectively compensate for the dead T cells. However, over time, the virus becomes acute and the T lymphocytes decline in number and a body can no longer fight off infections effectively thus making a human body a host for opportunistic infections, which is the final stage of HIV infection.
The environment aspect in an epidemiologic triad focuses on the physical, biological, and socioeconomic environments for an agent and host. Physical factors that lead to increased risk of HIV infections are sharing of sharp objects, such as injections, drug use, and unprotected sex. Different social factors also exacerbate the risk of HIV infection (Fauk et al., 2022). Elements such as limited economic opportunities that could lead to homelessness and lack of financial sustenance is linked to risky sexual indulgences such as exchanging sex for money, food, and protection. Inadequate education leads to limited knowledge and people may unknowingly indulge in harmful sexual encounters. All these factors describe the epidemiologic triangle for HIV/AIDS. Epidemiology in Public and Global Health Essay Assignment
Role of a Nurse in Addressing the Outbreak
Nurses have different roles to play in preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS. At the primary level, nurses are charged with the task of educating the patients on prevention measures. At a secondary level, once an individual has already acquired the virus, nurses play a substantial role in helping to teach healthy behaviors for living with the virus (Vandali, 2020). Some possible solutions include providing counsel and provision of health information and support. Further, at a tertiary level, nurses indulge in intense interventions including promoting quality of life in an affected person. Mainly, this includes assisting an individual to deal with fear, sadness, ager, and feelings of hopelessness that could be attributed to their health status. In this entire process, attitudes of nurses to people infected with the virus are integral. Nurses are required to remain nonjudgmental when treating and intervening in patients with HIV/AIDS.
Health Promotion/ Protection Strategies
There are different health promotion and protection strategies that nurses could indulge in to prevent and curtail further spread and rise of HIV/AIDS in affected regions. These programs include public education. HIV/AIDS is a controllable disease and nurses can educate the public on different ways that could help them to avoid catching new infections or further spreading the virus. Mainly, this could be done by teaching patients on HIV/AIDS when they come for treatment in a facility by issuing leaflets, brochures, and other paraphernalia containing awareness information for HIV/AIDS (Slavin, 2016). Through public education, nurses can modify individuals’ life choices an encourage early detection of HIV/AIDS to avert further infection and allow for early treatment. Epidemiology in Public and Global Health Essay Assignment
References
Fauk, N. K., Mwanri, L., Hawke, K., & Ward, P. R. (2022). Understanding social and environmental factors and their contribution mechanisms to HIV transmission among heterosexual men in Indonesia, BMJ. https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.03.15.22272326
Mandavilli, A. (2022, July 27). H.I.V. infections remain persistently high, U.N. reports. Nytimes.com. The New York Times – Breaking News, US News, World News and Videos. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/27/health/hiv-infections-unaids.html
Slavin, S. (2016). HIV treatment as prevention: Implications for health promotion. Health Promotion International, daw080. https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/daw080
Vandali, V. (2020). Nurses role in prevention of HIV/AIDS. Journal of Clinical and Nursing Research, 4(2). https://doi.org/10.26689/jcnr.v4i2.1096 Epidemiology in Public and Global Health Essay Assignment
Submit a 3- to 4-page paper that includes the following:
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A summary of the article, including the title and author
Identify the title of the article with in-text citation and corresponding reference in reference list. This criterion is linked to a Learning Outcome Required Content Summarized an article about an outbreak of infectious or communicable disease.
The relationship among causal agents, susceptible persons, and environmental factors (epidemiological triangle)
The role of the nurse in addressing the outbreak
Possible health promotion/health protection strategies that could have been implemented by nurses to mitigate the outbreak Epidemiology in Public and Global Health Essay Assignment
Epidemiologic surveillance is used in public and global health. For this Assignment, begin by locating a recent article about an outbreak of an infectious or communicable disease. The article can come from a newspaper or other source but your paper must be supported with at least three scholarly sources of evidence in the literature which may include your text or course readings. Epidemiology in Public and Global Health Essay Assignment