HIV/AIDS has posed a great danger to most communities across the world especially in San Juan resulting to a lot of deaths being reported on a daily basis. What is worrying the most is the alarming rate at which people are being infected making most families lose their treasured love ones. The number of persons who were diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in San Juan by 2012 was estimated to be 19,067 (Jovet-Toledo et al., 2014). In 2013, it is reported that there were 743 new HIV infections while, in the US, it was 47,352 (Jovet-Toledo et al., 2014). On the other hand, it is estimated there were 1.2 million people affected by the disease in the United States according to the CDC (CDC, 2013). Mostly the cause of the infections both in the United States and San Juan are injections by the drug users and heterosexual intercourse. This report, therefore, highlights the proposal to address the problem, SWOT analysis of the program, evaluate the program outcome, stipulate how community programs can be used to make the assessment successful and lastly elaborate on how social change will be measured.
INITIATIVE PROPOSAL
I chose to initiate this program because of the magnitude of the HIV/AIDS and the related problems it is causing to the entire community of San Juan. Most children have been orphaned and, therefore, left with no one to take good care of them. Companies have also lost skilled and experienced labor hence affecting productivity levels in the country. Although there is a decline in the HIV-related deaths due to the increased in the use of the antiretroviral drugs and other prevention methods such as the use of condoms, there is still need to sensitize the community to the dangers caused by this disease (CDC, 2013). This is just a clear manifestation that if more efforts are put in fighting the disease then, people will be able to live in a society free of HIV/AIDS. A majority of dwellers both in San Juan and the United States are not aware of the ways of protecting themselves from HIV infection and others simply do not have general information on HIV especially where to go for treatment and taking care of themselves or their loved ones in case they get infected. Thus, there is the need for more mechanisms to be put in place to curb this problem.
The objectives of the initiative
The main objectives of the program will be to campaign for the construction of healthcare facilities in the city that will provide care and drugs for the patients (CDC, 2013). Consequently, the program will also have the objective of educating people how to abandon their risky behaviors such as heterosexual intercourse and injecting themselves with the drugs. Additionally, the program will sensitize people on the prevention methods, especially amongst the women.
The program will also encourage as many people as possible to come out and get tested to know their HIV status. There is the need of asking the government to increase its effort in the provision of better care to people living with the disease as well as come up with legislation that protects the victims.
The second objective of educating the population about the danger of the disease can be achieved by working with other stakeholders such as the government and non-governmental organizations to educate the citizens on the general information about HIV and its effects. Drugs users ought to be provided with adequate syringes to avoid the sharing of the syringes amongst themselves.
The third objective of helping people to do away with their risky sexual behaviors can be tackled by advising residents to shun away from their religious beliefs and embrace the use of condoms during sexual intercourse. There is the necessity to educate people in San Juan to avoid careless drinking to avoid unplanned sex.
SWOT ANALYSIS
For this program to be successful there is a need for undertaking SWOT analysis so as to determine both the external and internal factors that can affect either positively or negatively the operations of the initiative. Establishment of these factors that can hinder the progress of the program will enable the parties involved to come up with ways of solving those problems (Hill, 2015). On the other hand, it is prudent to establish those factors that can favor the project so as to fully maximize on them to realize the set objectives. SWOT analysis also enables the project planners to come up with ways in which the project will be sustained in future to avoid failure. Therefore, SWOT analysis provides a roadmap on which project goals can be achieved.
Strength
One of the strengths that the program will enjoy is the use of the experienced and skilled health care practitioners from San Juan. There are so many health care practitioners in the area who have been trained on how to handle the HIV/AIDS and, therefore, it will be good if the program fully utilizes their expertise in educating the masses. High education and literacy levels in both San Juan and in the United States are another strength that the program enjoys. The level of education and literacy level in San Juan is high since High school graduates are above 74.1 %; however, this is lower compared to United State which is 86.0% (U.S. Department of Commerce, 2014). This, therefore, implies that the health practitioners and other stakeholders in both places will not face problems in trying top create awareness about the dangers of the HIV infection (Hill, 2015). CDC has provided compressive information on areas such as drug usage and heterosexual intercourse as the main factors that contributing to the spread of the disease hence making it easy for the program since it can start by tackling the problem from that point (CDC, 2013).
Weakness
Cultural and religious beliefs are some of the factors that are going to pose a lot of problems to the program in achieving its objectives. For instance, the Catholic Church does not encourage its faithful to use a condom during sexual intercourse and, therefore, the health practitioners will find it hard encouraging people from that church to use condoms. Consequently, the program may not be having adequate kits that can be used to test the whole San Juan population. Additionally, stigmatization still remains as the major milestone in the fight against HIV/AIDS since most communities do not treat equally those people infected with the disease. This, therefore, will make it hard for people to come out and get tested. Furthermore, since Puerto Rico is poorer compared to the United States, the country may lack the modern art of technology that is needed to adequately treat HIV/AIDS.
Opportunity
Existence of organizations such as the CDC that are involved in creating awareness of the dangers posed by HIV/AIDS will provide a good opportunity for the program to realize its set objectives (CDC, 2013). This implies that a good number of the people are already aware of the problems brought about by HIV/AIDS and, therefore, the program will be received positively by the community. The political stability enjoyed by San Juan is another boost for the program. We are all aware what political unrest can bring to the economic and to other activities in the country (Hill, 2015). The program should, therefore, take advantage of the sound environment in the country for efficient implementation.
Threat
Every program has threats to its operations. Lack of adequate funds and other resources are some of the threats that may make the project not realize its intended goals (Hill, 2015). Organizations such WHO and Red cross may be reluctant to offer some assistance to the program making it take a lot of time to take-off or offer quality services to the community. Culture and religious beliefs that people in San Juan live with may also make the operations of the project difficult to implement.
PROGRAM EVALUATION
Proposed pilot study for the program
There is the need for the program to be evaluated so as to establish whether it has the capacity to address this problem that is claiming the lives of many people in San Juan. This disease has continued to masquerade a great threat to human beings in the 21st century since it is untreatable (Jovet-Toledo et al., 2014). As such, there is the need to put in place a program will create awareness to people of san Juan on how to address this scourge. The program will strive to make sure a large portion of the population will go for testing so as to be aware of their HIV status. The feasibility of the program will be undertaken in Carolina municipality in San Juan to ensure that the program will be a success by observing its viability and predict the challenges that may affect the program.
The municipality has a total of 12 wards with a total population of 176,762 (Jovet-Toledo et al., 2014). The majority of people who live in this municipality are those of Hispanic origin and, therefore, most of the people are Catholics. The catholic community is known not to encourage their members to use the artificial mechanism of preventing HIV/AIDS. The program will initiate efforts to encourage people from municipality to use condoms as one of the methods of preventing the spread of the HIV infection. The program will use posters and advertisements in the social media as well as public forums to educate the people of the harmful consequences of the HIV/AIDS. The public forums will also serve to educate people on the symptoms of the disease and ways of living with the disease. This initiative will help in ensuring that those people infected with HIV infection live positively with the disease. Additionally, the program will serve to encourage community members to accept persons infected with HIV/AIDS and not victimize them.
The program will also give questionnaires to the locals to get feedback on their understanding of the HIV/AIDS. There is the need to involve the Carolina municipality to ensure that the program gets the consent to operate in the city.
Evaluation of the pilot study
There is a need to evaluate the pilot study ensure it is effective and efficient in meeting the goals for the program. As such, the program will utilize the six sigma evaluation method that adheres to the DMAIC methodology of evaluation of project outcome. The reason as to why I chose this method is because it defines the problem, measures program outcomes, analyzes the problem and provides ways to improve the program and how to control the program (Villanova University, 2016).
Definition of the problem
This stage of the DMAIC methodology defines the problem in question. For this program, the problem is the HIV/AIDS menace and mechanism put in place to reduce the negative impacts brought about by the disease to the community (Villanova University, 2016). The resources that are needed for the program to kick off and end up meeting the set targets can also form part of the definition stage. Skilled and experienced healthcare practitioners will also form part of the named resources above.
Measurement of the program
Having correct data on the number of people living with the HIV infection in the area will be useful to the project. This will enable the program to be able to distribute its resources effectively across the whole population in the municipality so as to be in a position to fully address the challenges brought about by the infection (Villanova University, 2016). This stage will also involve the determination of the total cost that would be spent in running the activities of the project. This is important since it will help to establish whether the project is financially viable.
Analysis of the program
This stage will involve analyzing how easily the program will be accepted by the community. As we are all aware, San Juan is primarily catholic community implying that the level of condom acceptability is low. This part of the evaluation stage will come up with the measurements on the number of people who are willing to use condoms during sexual intercourse from our education forums and, on the other hand, the number of people who have resisted the use of condoms if any. The acceptance levels will also be analyzed by the number of people who are willing to undergo testing to know their HIV status (Villanova University, 2016). Additionally, analyzing the program will give an idea of how patients living with the HIV have been fully accepted in the community they are living in. This will give a clear indication that victimization has been dealt with.
Improvement of the program
Once the program has been analyzed, it will become easy to identify areas that need to be corrected for the project to be fully accepted by the community. Once those areas have been identifying, it is important for the project stakeholders to come up alternatives methods of dealing with the problem (Villanova University, 2016).
Control of the program
Program sustainability is one of the important aspects of projects. It will shamefully for the project to collapse for lack of a good survival strategy. A plan on how the project will be sustained should be drawn at the planning stage (Villanova University, 2016). As such, there is need to solicit funds from the local governments and other financial institutions to ensure that the future programs will not collapse.
COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS
The program’s management will not work in isolation, as such; it has to work with other stakeholders in the community if it needs to achieve its objectives easily and effectively (Community Places, 2014). As such, the program must incorporate local chiefs, village elders, health practitioners, religious leaders and other community associations in the operations of the initiative. This is because of their level of understanding of the area. Health facilities and practitioners will be able to provide the project with data of the people suspected to be living with the HIV infection so that they can be tested. Involving the village elders in the program will also ensure that the project will not find difficulties in penetrating into the area (Community Places, 2014).
The project should also partner with other community-based organizations operating in the area not forgetting CDC and Red Cross. These organizations can provide financial assistance to the program as well information concerning the community. When all those organizations work together, eradicating HIV/AIDS will become easy (Stempniak, 2014). Additionally, the program should also work with local universities, hospitals and volunteers since they will greatly help in making the operations of the program easy and effective (Stempniak, 2014). These parties will provide labor and other resources that are important to the program (Community Places, 2014).
Measuring social change
The outcomes of the program will be measured the magnitude of positive social change it will have to the community. The initative should be geared towards bringing positive change to the people. The impacts of the social change experienced should be assessed. The methods used to determine the social change should also be effective and adequate (Allison, 2009). The reason as to why the measurement methods need to be effective is because they are supposed to bring positive change to the people. This process of measuring social change is very important since it will help in establishing whether the objectives of the program have been achieved; find out which intervention implied worked and which did not and the reasons as to why they didn’t; enables building of new theories and it ensures that accountability is upheld in the program.
The program will have realized positive social change by the level of acceptability people will have on the use of condoms and also a number of persons who will have been tested for the HIV infection. The number of individuals tested should be as planned at the initiation of the initiative. The social change can also be measured by the levels in which the community has realized that HIV/ AIDS is a big problem for human being in the 21st century and their willingness to participate in the process of eradicating this disease in the society (Allison, 2009). Additionally, there should also be a positive change in the manner in which the community treat and care for people living with the HIV infection. People living with HIV ought to be treated with respect, dignity and equally not to be discriminated. For this social change to be experienced, the community has to abolish the religious and cultural beliefs existing concerning HIV/AIDS. Social change will also be realized if the political class supports the call for the eradication of the disease. There must be legislation that protects and support people living with HIV infection.
Conclusively, HIV/AIDS has proved to be a big problem for most communities but it can easily be eradicated if all the stakeholders involved in the fight against the disease come together and fight the menace.
References
Allison Jones. (2009). Five problems with how we measure social change. Retrieved from http://www.allisonj.org/uncategorized/five-problems-measure-social-change/
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2013). Resources for implementing the community health needs assessment process. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/policy/chna/
Community Places. (2014). Community planning toolkit: Community engagement.
Hill, B. (2015). Why Perform a SWOT Analysis? | Chron.com. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/perform-swot-analysis-5050.html
Jovet-Toledo, G. G., Clatts, M. C., Rodriguez-Diaz, C. E., Goldsamt, L., & Vargas-Molina, R. L. (2014). Risk factors for suicide attempts in a clinic-based sample of people living with HIV in Puerto Rico. AIDS care, 26(8), 1032-1035.
Stempniak, M. (2014). Hospitals are engaging the community to improve care. Hospitals & Health Networks.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2015). New York QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau. Retrieved from http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/36000.html
U.S. Department of Commerce. (2014). Income in Puerto Rico Holds Steady After Recession. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2014/cb14-17.html
Villanova University. (2016). DMAIC Methodology | A Six Sigma Process Improvement Method. Retrieved from http://www.villanovau.com/resources/six-sigma/six-sigma-methodology-dmaic/#.Voz2PLZ95ko
