Tuberculosis
What is Tuberculosis?
Tuberculosis is an infectious disease that is transmitted from an infected person to a healthy person through droplets air. In affects the respiratory system where it results in signs such as coughing, fever, headache, and chest pains. Tuberculosis can be cured when it is given attention to the correct medication from a therapist. Tuberculosis is caused by bacteria that mainly reside in the respiratory system, where it mainly eats up the lungs cells (Getahun, Matteelli, Abubakar, at el,.2015). Similarly, it attacks the other parts of the body, such as the spine, brain, and kidney. It is everyone who can be affected by tuberculosis regardless of age and gender, race, and language of communication. Therefore, it is important for a person who has the signs of getting tested so that he cannot spread it to other people since it spread through droplets of air.
The surveillance system that monitors disease and health-related risk factors in the United States
Behavioral risk factor surveillance system
This is a national system that takes surveillance of health-related telephone surveys that help in collecting data of American residents concerning their health risks behaviors such as in the case study of Sara, chronic disease conditions, and preventive measures that can be put in place (Gonzales & Henning-Smith,2017). Through the collection of behavioral health risks data in states and local levels, the surveillance system has been a strong tool that has helped the country in monitoring risks that are pertaining to health. The behavioral health risk system users have the capacity to ask more questions that are regarding their health conditions and changes that are taking place. Similarly, the system has helped in the control of substance abuse and mental health problems since they can be caused by non-health conditions, thus helping the health sector to have clear data of their involvement.
Youths risk behavior surveillance system
The health system has the task of monitoring six categories of health-related syndromes that can result in the cause of death and disability in youths and adults (Riley, Guthold, Cowan, at el,.2016). The system looks into behaviors that will result in injuries and violence that are unintentional. This will help curb the situation that is affecting the youths and adults who may die from such incidences that have no direct cure. They have a look at sexual behaviors that result in an unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases that include HIV infection. Similarly, they do surveillance on alcohol and drug abuse, which is more common among the youth that leads them to drop out of school. Additionally, the system helps in measuring the level of obesity and asthma, plus other health complication that is related to sexual identity and sexual contact.
National Health Interview Survey
This is the main source of information on the health of civilians who have a noninstitutionalized population of America and is the main data collection program. The data collection program helps in collecting data on diseases that are likely to happen in a specific area and the kind of protection measures that should be put so that it cannot be a pandemic (Birkhead, Klompas & Shah, 2015). The data is obtained through personal household interviews where interviewers visit American homes to ask for details about the range of health topics that may be affecting any member of the family.
Monitoring the health of the American population by the collection of data, and they do an analysis of the collected data; this gives the image of the health records of the country. The survey helps in medical conditions and health insurance, thus helps in making conditions that will help in making the conditions of health services of the country. They help in monitoring the progress towards the health objectives, they evaluate the health policies and programs of the government, plus they track implementation changes that take place in the health care use and behaviors. They follow the public health service act, thus helps in making decisions that will help the whole population.
Was risk communication important to Sara’s colleagues? Why and why not?
No, it was not necessary to have risk communication since Sara had been recommended by her physician to go back to work; thus she had recovered from the malady that he was suffering from. To be allowed to go back to work by the physician, it was an implication that she had recovered from the ailment, and she would not spread the contagious disease to his colleagues. Additionally, it would have prevented the stigmatization that his colleagues would subject her, and that would make her suffer that the way she was suffering from the malady (Parmer, Baur, Eroglu, at el, 2016). Without raising the alarm over Sara’s diagnosis would have helped the isolation that she was experiencing since his colleague displaying the same symptoms would not have meant he was suffering from the same disease. Through this manner, it would have saved Sara from being stigmatized from the reaction of his co-workers.
Key components in developing crisis and emergency risk communication message
The message should identify the crisis that is being passed on to the co-workers. This will help have a clue about what is being passes on to the audience. Identification will help have an important part of the message, and it should be defined well so that the audience should get a clear message (Radovic & Mercantini,2015). The message should have a brief description of the incident that is happening to elaborate on the crisis that is happening and help have a clear manner of having the condition within the firm.
Provision of a timetable for future plans that will help control incidences that would happen similar to the action that has happened. The timetable of plans will help have a schedule of events that would help make advances of any incidence that will happen. It will help have measures that will help make the firm have the best way of communication.
There should be a communication of compassion for victims of the crisis. This will help the victims not to feel that they are the cause of the problem and feel low of their condition. Companionate communication will help to reduce the stigma that they will undergo when other co-workers will isolate them and have a fear of being transmitted the same ailment (Rogers & Pearce,2016). They will feel that they are part of the firm and help in curbing the spread of the crisis, thus helping make positive progress.
The message should have suggestions for protection where it is appropriate, for example, to remember to wash hands when there is a flu outbreak. This will help the receivers of the message to have alternatives for protecting themselves from the attack. The suggestion will be an approved way of protecting themselves from the attack.
Reference
Birkhead, G. S., Klompas, M., & Shah, N. R. (2015). Use of electronic health records for public health surveillance to advance public health. Annual review of public health, 36, 345-359.
Getahun, H., Matteelli, A., Abubakar, I., Aziz, M. A., Baddeley, A., Barreira, D., … & Cavalcante, S. (2015). Management of latent Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection: WHO guidelines for low tuberculosis burden countries. European Respiratory Journal, 46(6), 1563-1576.
Gonzales, G., & Henning-Smith, C. (2017). Health disparities by sexual orientation: Results and implications from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Journal of community health, 42(6), 1163-1172.
Parmer, J., Baur, C., Eroglu, D., Lubell, K., Prue, C., Reynolds, B., & Weaver, J. (2016). Crisis and emergency risk messaging in mass media news stories: is the public getting the information they need to protect their health?. Health communication, 31(10), 1215-1222.
Radovic, V., & Mercantini, J. M. (2015). The importance of risk communication as an integral part of risk management in the Republic of Serbia. In Risk and Cognition (pp. 61-88). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Riley, L., Guthold, R., Cowan, M., Savin, S., Bhatti, L., Armstrong, T., & Bonita, R. (2016). The World Health Organization STEPwise approach to noncommunicable disease risk-factor surveillance: methods, challenges, and opportunities. American journal of public health, 106(1), 74-78.
Rogers, M. B., & Pearce, J. M. (2016). The psychology of crisis communication. The handbook of international crisis communication research, 34-44.