Identification of the Specific Health Promotion Need in Washington, DC
Washington, D.C, is the capital city of the United States of America and is a major center for health policy and public health expertise. The District of Columbia has the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rate of 3 % which is at par with some countries in the sub-Saharan African. The local public in collaboration with capital’s public health agencies, faith organizations, research institutions and community organizations have response to controlled the epidemic but much have not been achieved (Alan et al., 2009).
The leading causes of death and illness among young adults and adolescent are mainly preventable and hence there is a need to intervene. The health outcomes for this population group are largely contributed by their social environments and are escalated by their risky behaviors. These risky behaviors are influenced at various levels such as the peer, family, individual, societal, community and school (Alan et al., 2009). Various factors have contributed to the severity of the epidemic among the locals and these same factors are acting as learning barriers. The first factor is the fact that there are high proportion of residents within the populations at high risks of HIV infection which is accelerated with men who are having sex with fellow men, high risk of heterosexuals and injecting drugs among users. Most of these populations have common characteristics of sexual and social networks. Secondly, Washington, D.C, has relatively high levels of economic disparity and poverty (Alan et al., 2009). This has immensely contributed to inadequate access to effective care and prevention services in the population who are in need. Lastly, Washington, D.C has a notable small population as compared with other major cities in the U.S with a significant epidemic prevalence. This has coupled with the highest number of HIV/AIDS cases thus contributing to relatively high HIV prevalence rate. There is a need to engage in health promotion program to target the young population so as to educate them on HIV prevalence rate since it is the most vulnerable group. This health promotion need will be in accordance with healthy people 2020 program launched in December 2010 by the department of health and human services which has four main overarching goals. These goals include attainment of high-quality, longer lives which are free from preventable disease, disability, premature death and injury; to achieve health equity, improve the health of all groups, and eliminate disparities; to promote quality of life, healthy behaviors and healthy development across all life stages and lastly is to create physical and social environments that promote good health for all (Centers for Disease control and Prevention, 2015).
Establishing Health Education Outcomes
Once the education on HIV awareness will be conducted and people are encourage to be going for HIV testing, more than one-half of the people who are positive will be aware of their status and they will start to live positively regardless of their status. Many people will change their perception towards HIV and adapt HIV testing as one of their health care. The early diagnosis of the status will help the healthcare professionals to advice the affected persons to take the necessary remedy such as eating a balance diet, avoiding drug use and enroll to antiretroviral drugs program before their immune systems are compromised hence assisting them to live long. Furthermore, after conducting health promotional need plan, more persons will became aware of the risk behavioral activities such as having unsafe sex with a partner whose HIV status in unknown. There will be more accurate risk awareness that will make more people to make a better decision making within and outside relationships as well as making use of condom a routine activity when they are having sexual intercourse with partners whom HIV status is unknown and more young couples will come out to seek health HIV testing services.
Designing of the Health Education Plan
In this health promotional need, I am planning to teach the young population about the HIV prevalence and ways on how to reduce HIV infections and at the same time encourage those who are infected to undergo counseling so as to live positively. I will also teach people the importance of knowing their HIV status through incorporating HIV screening model to become routine practices and consent among them. This is because around one-half of people who are HIV positive are living unaware about their status. People once they go for HIV screening, they will know about their status and if they are positive, an early medication will be avail and a mother-to-child infection for example will be prevented. I will further call people to shift their focus on not only accessing provision of condoms, but more so on promoting the use of condoms. I will also encourage other community-based organizations to shift from traditional distribution sites to nontraditional distribution sites like clothing stores, liquor stores and hair salons stores to chip-in in distributions of condoms and educating the potential clients. These local sites are quite many and a large population will be reached within the Washington, D.C.
Implementation of the Health Education Plan
I will use lectures and videos to implement my health education plan. I will lecture to people about the HIV prevalence rate among the youth as oppose to the perception that it is a disease of adults. I will use videos to teach youth about the risky behaviors they are involving in which had contributed majorly to HIV infections with an aim of fostering protective behavior and building awareness. Repeatedly playing of video will show how severe an onset of the HIV infection is eliminating the youth and thus this will make it to stick in the minds of the youth and they will learn a lesson to avoid it. More so, videos are very attractive to youths and therefore, the moment they get there will get touched with the content being presented.
Evaluation of Health Education Plan
The mobile calls and the messages I will receive through email from the clients requesting for more help to get them completely out of risky behaviors and injections of drugs will serves as a positive achievement of the education health program. Furthermore, if I will be within the bracket of the budget set to conduct this health education plan, it will serve as a good indicator of heading to a better position.
In conclusion, in order to fully realize and sustain transformation of the Washington, D.C’s response to HIV, it is advisable to expand community-based plans; habitually engage faith-based organizations and recruit more youth agencies to competently deal with HIV epidemic among the youth as well as adults. Additionally, an effective school health education to prevent spreading of HIV/AIDS should be enhanced in order to influence youths to adopt relevant behaviors that can effectively prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.
References
Alan, E., Shannon, L., Masur, H., Toni, A., Jennifer, S., & Carl, W. (2009). Fighting HIV/AIDS In Washington, D.C. Retrieved from https://www.princeton.edu/cbli/student-projects-1/Washington-DC-analysis-Greenberg.pdf
Centers for Disease control and Prevention. (2015). Healthy People 2020. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/healthy_people/hp2020.htm
