Epidemiology Essay

The study of the distribution and determination of health-related states or events in specific groups is known as epidemiology (Nii-Trebi, 2017). The study’s findings are being used to regulate a variety of health issues, including infectious infections.

A disease outbreak is the emergence of more illness cases than would be expected in a given population, geographical area, or season (Bloom, Black & Rappuoli, 2017). Depending on the nature of the disease, the epidemic may be limited to a single geographic area or may spread across numerous countries, and it may remain indefinitely. Incidence is the number of persons who develop a particular type of disease or experience a specific health-related occurrence during a specific period. It simply refers to the number of new cases of particular disease within a specified period.

Prevalence

Prevalence is the total number of persons in a population who have a disease or a particular health condition at a specific period. This value is always presented as a percentage of the population under study.

Role of Nursing within Epidemiology

Nursing advocates help in facilitating the efforts of the patients to obtain the required healthcare services and to negotiate the most appropriate care management plan (Nii-Trebi, 2017). They also conduct community promotion awareness about the significant health problems and thereby stimulating a supportive community action for health.

Nursing as a caregiving body helps in the provision of care to persons, families and other susceptible populations in different forms of settings (Pottie et al., 2017). Such care services can include educating the patients about health care problems and screening for the undiagnosed health situations.

Case-finding nursing conduct targeted outreach programs which are aimed at identifying the patients who are in need for service, assist the patients to access the suitable care and observe for patients who may have probable or definite service need during their daily course of activities.

Nurses who offer to counsel the patients do always help the patients to cope with normative and non-normative stressors which could lead to emergencies and to adopt changes in the environment. Through these, the patients can express their emotions and feelings, clarify facts in the situation and antagonize the stress in untroublesome doses (Nii-Trebi, 2017).

The nurse can offer education services to the general public which help in the promotion of positive health action and to facilitate behavioral change and enable the patients to learn about new events and healthy operational.

Nurses can use the epidemiological methods to examine the health-related difficulties among the population groups and thereby developing population-focused interventions.

Nurses can also use the healthcare planning procedures to develop, implement and evaluate health services for the populations which are at high risk and thereby providing a community-wide or population specific health services.

Managing nurses have the responsibility of managing the various caseload hassles in an efficient and effective manner, and problems and actions of the other members of the health care team (Nii-Trebi, 2017). They can also help the patients to make decisions about the most suitable health care services and to realize service delivery incorporation and coordination (Pottie et al., 2017). They also advocate for services if required and make referrals as required by the situation.

Current Locally, Statewide and Nationally Distributed Infectious Diseases

Locally

Encephalitis disease was discovered in Kern County, California, in the United States of America, and it is caused by California encephalitis virus. This is an acute inflammation of the brain which can lead to minor symptoms such as a headache and severe symptoms like seizures (Bloom, Black & Rappuoli, 2017). This virus is carried by the mosquito serve, and it is spread through mosquito bites.

Statewide

La Crosse encephalitis disease is an infectious disease which is caused by the California Sero-group Viruses which is mostly found amongst the people living in the Southern part of the California State (Pottie et al., 2017). The initial symptoms of the disease include fever, headache, vomiting, and tiredness. In some cases, some patients may develop the severe neuro-invasive disease.

Nationally

The increasing cases of dengue fever in the USA is a major concern in the health care system. It is an infectious disease which is instigated by a family of viruses that are transmitted by mosquitoes (Bloom, Black & Rappuoli, 2017). Some of the onset symptoms of the disease include a headache, fever, severe muscle and joint pain, swollen lymph nodes and joints.

Associating the current infectious diseases with Healthy people 2020 objectives

To reduce, eradicate or uphold elimination of the vaccine preventable diseases such as dengue fever.

To reduce the invasive infections of dengue fever and La Crosse encephalitis disease.

To eliminate or reduce the risk factors and the causative agents for the disease.

Evidence-based practices aimed at reducing infectious diseases

Both the dengue fever and La Crosse encephalitis disease have mosquitoes as their vectors. It is therefore important to control the breeding sites of the mosquitoes (Nii-Trebi, 2017). The efforts should, therefore, focus on the larval phase destruction cleaning up of the larvae habitats. The breeding vectors of mosquitoes can be reduced through removal of the small accumulations of stagnant water around human habitats (Bloom, Black & Rappuoli, 2017). The mosquito netting can also be used but is of imperfect benefit since Aedes are day-biting mosquitoes.

References

Bloom, D., Black, S., & Rappuoli, R. (2017). Emerging infectious diseases: A proactive approach. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(16), 4055-4059. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1701410114

Nii-Trebi, N. (2017). Emerging and Neglected Infectious Diseases: Insights, Advances, and Challenges. Biomed Research International, 2017, 1-15.

Pottie, K., Mayhew, A., Morton, R., Greenaway, C., Akl, E., & Rahman, P. et al. (2017). Prevention and assessment of infectious diseases among children and adult migrants arriving to the European Union/European Economic Association: a protocol for a suite of systematic reviews for public health and health systems. BMJ Open, 3(4), 1-8.