extending or adding

A
healthy people 2020 goal that is important to me and in my community
is the issue of immunizations and infectious diseases. I work in a
pediatric environment and this issue is something I come across
everyday. Not all parents are well educated on the benefits of
receiving vaccinations. Due to I believe social media, parents have
misguided information, and incorrect information that gets passed
around. While many professional organizations and agencies such
as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) emphasize the
importance of scheduled vaccinations, advocates of the
anti-immunization movement endorse the view that vaccinations are
unsafe and potentially harmful. As Johnstone (2017) states,”
mistrust in science has compromised the possibility of engaging in
sound policy analysis owing partially to justified concerns by
anti-vaccination proponents regarding outright manipulation and undue
interference for commercial interests”. Claims by such supporters
have motivated a number of parents to refuse their children the right
to obtain immunizations. In spite of this, overwhelming evidence
continues to support the efficacy of immunizations on various public
health outcomes.Recent outbreaks of diseases such as measles and
whooping cough are a reminder that infectious illnesses once thought
of as “eradicated” or “rare” are making a gradual
comeback in the United States. Dube, Vivion, and MacDonald
(2015) acknowledge that immunization programs usually rely on high
vaccine uptake in order to be successful in reducing the incidence
and prevalence of vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs). In addition to
offering direct protection for the vaccinated individuals,
immunization programs also induce indirect protection through herd
immunity for the whole community, especially with regard to those
infections spread from one person to another.

It’s important at my job,
that I inform parents the risk of not having their children
vaccinated. I have witnessed very sick children, most could’ve been
prevented.

References

Johnstone, M.-J. (2017).
Ethics, evidence and the anti-vaccination debate. Australian Nursing
& Midwifery Journal , 24 (8), 27

Dube, E., Vivion, M., &
MacDonald, N. E. (2015). Vaccine hesitancy, vaccine refusal and the
anti-vaccine movement: Influence, impact and implications. Expert
Review of Vaccines , 14 (1), 99–117.

Health
Assessment and Promotion

Good
health is critical to the social and economic growth of the world as
well as the improved quality of life for all people. Thus, certain
conditions and resources become critical components of improved
health within individual communities. In other words, people require
a minimum of safe living conditions, adequate nutrition, suitable
financial income, and equality. At a closer look, many communities
suffer from food safety issues which ought to be addressed
immediately with the following health promotion action areas:
building healthy public policy, creating supportive environments,
strengthening community actions, developing personal skills, and
reorienting health services.

Unfortunately, among forty-eight
million Americans suffer from food-borne illnesses each year (“Food
Safety,” 2020). With that, more than three thousand deaths occur
per year due to food germs and poor behaviors leading to some form of
food contamination. Therefore, the first step to rectifying this
issue is to build better public policies towards food safety. The
food industry is continuously battling issues with employees
preparing food including, but not limited to variation in food
preparation skills, inability to trace food items to the source, and
lack of employee policy. Here, it is imperative for the food industry
to create policies diminishing the number of employees attending work
when sick, especially those handling food items. Then, leaders within
the food industry need to take necessary steps with policymakers in
order to set food safety and preparation standards as well as
demanding credentials from food distributors to understand exactly
where the food is coming from.

Next, food-borne illnesses affect
all people with those at the age above fifty years and under four
years as the most susceptible to certain bacteria strains. In this
way, the community must act together to build a supportive
environment protecting populations with a greater risk of illness. If
better policies within the food industry lead to improved food
safety, it is likely the population will increase in quality of life
and decrease the burden to healthcare facilities. Moreover, a
supportive environment includes open communication on how people may
safely handle food to decrease the risk of food-borne illnesses. Easy
steps to take if informing local people of what temperatures certain
foods should be cooked, what foods need to be
separated from others, how to safely store food, and properly
cleaning for food handling (“Food Safety,” 2020).

Community support inevitably leads to the
strengthening of community actions. Here, the community ought to know
about hazardous products and consumer complaints regarding public
health. The necessary officials, including healthcare professionals,
government officials, and food providers, must work together to
reveal to the public any food recalls or potential hazards within the
community. Besides that, the community needs to understand how to
dispose of such food items and why they should do so. Further,
pertinent officials within the food industry must identify the source
of the problem and eliminate it from declining the health of the
local community. Additional initiatives include control activities
among the distribution and sale of food as well as food practices
within individual households.

Moreover, developing the personal skills of each
individual is the quickest and most efficient way to progress food
safety and quality of life to the community. The first step to better
food safety within households is for any person in the kitchen
handling food items to thoroughly wash his or her hands as well as
disinfect the counter tops and any cooking tools. Then, raw meats,
poultry, and eggs must be separated from other items. More
importantly, cooking raw foods until hot kills any lingering germs.
Additionally, expired foods must never be used and excess foods when
cooking must be stored properly. Perhaps most critical, if a
household suspects food-borne illness, it must be reported to local
officials immediately.

Finally, reorienting
health services to lead to better food safety relates to inspection,
surveillance, administrative compliance, and judicial enforcement.
The United States Food and Drug Administration and the Department of
Agriculture may focus food safety efforts including distributing
safety experts throughout local communities, supporting education and
assistance, holding the source of widespread food-borne illnesses
accountable, conducting frequent surveys and inspections, enforcing
food safety compliance, responding immediately to outbreaks
diminishing public health, and preventing future outbreaks
(“Operational Strategy,” 2017). Overall, officials and
community members working together ultimately leads to increased
public health in terms of food safety.

References

Food
safety (2020). Office
of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
.
Retrieved from

https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topics-objectiv…

Operational strategy for
implementing the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA)

protecting public health
by strategic implementation of prevention-oriented food

safety
standards (2017). United
States Food and Drug Administration
.
Retrieved from

https://www.fda.gov/food/food-safety-modernization-act-fsma/operational-strategy-

implementing-fda-food-safety-modernization-act-fsma

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