For Essays Guru –
For the next newsletter, you have been asked to write about the effect of a specific communicable disease on your community.(Attached is how the previous newsletter looked)
Identify a communicable disease to research.
Write a 700- to 850 word paper that summarizes your research. Your paper should:
Describe the disease and discuss efforts to control it.
Identify the environmental factors related to this disease.
Explain the influence of lifestyles, socioeconomic status, and disease management.
Identify gaps and how you might connect to other resources to meet needs that are not locally available.
Include recommendations to expand the community’s programs if there are gaps.
Describe what the public health department is doing to reduce the threat of the disease.
Include data findings, evidence-based intervention, and a plan to ensure quality health.
Cite at least 3 references.
NEWSLETTER PUBLIC HEALTH
24TH AUGUST, 2020
Government and Public Health
The government offers plans and services that affect the health of the general public. In the beginning of the 20th century, the main challenge for local governments and public health department w as to stop the spread of infectious diseases. Government institutions responded by ensuring that com m unities had improved sew age disposal systems as well as access to clean drinking water. Currently, lifestyle diseases are the top cause of death in the USA with obesity related complications being major contributors. The government being a major contributor of health in the com m unity has come up with measures and systems to ensure information distribution as well as commitment towards keeping back obesity (Edmunds, 2020). This paper seeks to explain how the government has provided com m unities with information in regards to obesity.
Structure and Function of Public Health
It is the duty of the state health department to provide the core functions of public health (Edmunds, 2020). They are responsible for creating policies, assessing health of the public and continual promotion of activities that help to prevent diseases, in this case obesity. The states are divided into those that have their own health agencies and those that are subordinates of a larger health department or agency. This however does not reflect on any difference in the overall health of the states.
Boards and councils that are present in the state are responsible for announcing rules, educating the council on health issues, and developing health plans and policies. Board memberships are largely made up of community members and elected members. The state health agency is the overall head of public health (Edmunds, 2020). The duties of state health department vary according to the state. Even though the boards constitute of public members, their role is small as compared to 10 years ago especially in the creation of policies. However, it is still a positive factor to involve the public in the board responsible for decision making on health matters.
Structure and Function of Public Health
With the growth of government funded program s and technologically advanced medical research methods, previous health agencies have been left with little resources available. A t the local level, informal managers with little to no medical training can be appointed to the state health agencies (Sharma et al, 2020). Small rural local health agencies often serve several rural cities and are headed by county health agencies. A t the state level, immunization, disease control, and health statistics, and providing information for health education are some of their crucial responsibilities. They are also responsible for ensuring institutions, providers, and individuals are certified and licensed accordingly. A t the local level, public health agencies responsibilities include child immunization program s and services, ensuring proper restaurant sanitation and dental health services. A t the com m unity and township level, responsibilities offered include com m unity assessment, health education, com m unity education, and food safety. All these sectors work together from policy making at the state level to com m unity education at the local level to ensure that appropriate information is distributed across (Sharma et al, 2020 ).
These levels of the government also work together to distribute and allocate resources from the state level to the com m unity level as w ell as resources required for research purposes.
National and Local Websites for Obesity
At the national level websites such as US Department of Agriculture provide the public with medical information in regards to obesity as one of the major chronic illnesses in the U S. In addition, the website also includes treatment, prevention, and all other relevant information. This is under the Food and Nutrition Information Center which is a state public health agency. Another national example includes the Center for Disease Control and Prevention where they have a section for obesity and it contains all the relevant medical information regarding obesity. The US
Department of Health and Human Services in the national health agency website for distributing public health information. They have a section named the overweight and obesity section which covers a myriad of obese related topics including treatment, prevention, and risk factors. The national website also includes sections on policies and health law information regarding obesity. An example of a state- level website for providing information for obesity is the Healthcare Georgia Foundation. It centers on the Childhood Obesity Prevention Program. The website offers to educate members of the available program that is aimed at reducing childhood obesity. In addition, the state website works to create awareness for local com m unities within Georgia. The program is funded by the state but it is distributed across small communities in Georgia. The impact of the program is felt on the local level.
Another example of a local
Website is the Illinois
Prevention Research Center
under the obesity section. The
section offers an array of
information and articles on how
to lower the rates of obesity in
Illinois. The information also
includes obesity statistics from
state health agency websites
like US Health Department. The
website is also tied to
information from the CD C to
help elaborate and also give
ore data- based information. Example is the citing of the article CD Cs State Indicator Report on Fruits and Vegetables. The information provided from the state is distributed at the local level and is used for com m unity education (Sharm a et al, 2020 ).
Conclusion
For an overall healthy com m unity, all government levels including infrastructure, and information system s should be strengthened. The national and local collaborations will ensure that appropriate strategies and policies have been created to meet the needs of the com m unity. A healthy public health system will help to promote the health of Americans by preventing chronic illnesses.
References
Dixon, B . E., & Grannis, S. J. (2020 ). Information Infrastructure to Support Public Health. In Public Health Informatics and Information System s (pp. 83- 104)
Springer, Cham . Edmunds, M. (2020 ). Governmental and Legislative Context for Informatics. In Public health informatics and information system s (pp. 43- 57).
Springer, Cham . Sharm a, M ., B ranscum , P. W ., & A tri, A . (2020 ). Introduction to com m unity and public health. John W iley & Sons.
