Running head: PREVENTING THE INFLUENZA VIRUS 1
PREVENTING THE FLU IN SCHOOL 6
Preventing the Influenza Virus in School-aged Children
Tracy Bell
Community College of Baltimore County
Children rely on the decisions that are made by responsible individuals in their lives including parents, caretakers, and other authorities such as teachers. Because children depend on others so heavily, health issues that affect children such as contracting the influenza virus or the flu should be discussed with the adults in their lives. Every year a new strain of the influenza virus affects the health of school-aged children causing a potential health risk to themselves and others around them. The spread of the influenza virus in
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One way to help stop the spread of the influenza virus is through receiving yearly vaccinations. Every year through predictions, a group of scientists help drug companies develop vaccines for the approaching influenza season (Surviving the flu season, 2016). Due to the importance of receiving the vaccine there should be a plan in place that makes this vaccine more accessible to all individuals especially the younger population. A start could be partnering with the local medical community to initiate school vaccination programs. Having a nationwide program advocate for kids that do not have a primary doctors, insurance, or means or transportation to get to a clinic to be vaccinated would be highly beneficial. School based health clinics can be successful because kids are already in one central location around ninety-two to ninety-eight percent are in attendance at school on average (Herbert, Gargano, Painter, Sales, Morfaw, Murray, DiClemente, & Hughes, 2013). In addition, having kids get vaccinated at the same time could prevent influenza cases, and decrease medical care cost for families. School-age kids also remain carriers of the virus for an extended period of time, therefore targeting school-aged kids is critical to helping minimize the spread of the influenza virus in the community (Herbert et al., 2013). Additionally, having all students vaccinated can minimize the severity
The article “Don’t Believe Flu Myths” relates to this week’s topic of public health laws and protecting people from themselves. In summary, the article discusses this year’s grim flu season and the need to have a larger proportion of the population vaccinated. Due to its positive stance for immunization and protecting individuals from each other, the article supports the lecture for this week. In particular, implementing vaccinations for children in public schools is an extremely large concern of public health. Flu vaccines for children are especially important this year, as the predominant flu subtype seems to notably affect children. According to the article, “since the beginning of the flu season in October, 53 children have died from the
This paper will discuss the communicable disease influenza. It will discuss the causes, symptoms, and treatments, as well as the demographics of interest. It will also discuss the determinants of health and how these factors contribute to the development of influenza. Included in this paper will be information on host, agent, and environmental factors. Lastly it will explain the role of the community health nurse in caring for those affected with influenza and the role they play in education and prevention.
Annually there are a number of children who contract the influenza during the influenza season that results in an increase in costs in pediatric office visits and antibiotic and other medications consumption and also in a significant increase in absences from school and work. Thus influenza vaccination of children can help reduce the number of visit to pediatric office, hospitalizations, and help prevent the spread of influenza in the wider community. Moreover vaccinating children is cost effective when considering all the cost of treatment for influenza and its complications. Therefore yearly vaccination of children with the inactivated influenza vaccine save parent money and time away from the pediatric clinic. Influenza vaccine does not
Great ideas on finding a solution that can increase the rate of vaccination for the older population. Having a strong community that offers different programs to help different ethnicity is a good solution for them to have a good quality health care. With the community, there can be an outreach that can collaborate with the community partners and health care providers to educate, motive, and promote seasonal influenza vaccination (AHIP, 2011). With many minority populations (Hispanic, Asian, etc) believed that vaccination can cause more serious illness, there should be an agency that can address those misconceptions and educate them risk and safety of vaccination (AHIP, 2011). The local pharmacies and supermarkets are also a good way
Every year influenza (flu) hits America, and often leaves adults and children ill for days. The Centers for Disease Control takes it upon themselves to encourage adults and children to get vaccinated for the flu. They do this through an advertising campaign that relates to people of all ages. Their Centers for Disease Control campaign focuses on convincing people of all ages, especially children, to get flu vaccinces.
Vaccination rates among the general population in the United States is an important public health intervention aimed at preventing unnecessary hospitalizations and premature deaths related to influenza. Among these vaccinations is the influenza vaccination, in which our paper will primarily focus on the barriers which prevent vaccination and determine ways to reduce the number of reasons people choose not to be immunized. We will look at some of the determinants and how they affect vaccination rates. These determinants include looking at: age, gender, marital status, education, ethnicity, socio-economic status, social and cultural values, housing, behavioral beliefs, social influences, previous vaccine experiences, perceived susceptibility, sources of information, perceived health status, healthcare system accessibility, affordability, knowledge and attitudes about vaccination, and physicians’ advice. By looking at the impact of these determinants, we can draw conclusions on how decreasing these barriers will impact the vaccination rate for the influenza vaccine. We will focus on the general population as a whole and at risk populations including: the elderly over the age of 65, children younger than 6 years old and health care workers.
Accessing healthcare services and vaccination are important ways individuals can prevent severe influenza illness. However, deep-seated inequalities in the US have render disadvantaged populations more vulnerable to influenza infection through structural or institutionalized barriers to the receipt of vaccination and antiviral treatment. 7 These barriers also make it difficult for disadvantaged populations to be aware of and utilize non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) - which include voluntary home quarantine, isolation and treatment of cases, social distancing, utilization of face masks, hand hygiene, and keeping children home from school - that are integral for preventing influenza outbreaks, especially when vaccines or antivirals are unavailable or ineffective in the case of a new pandemic strain. 8,9 In addition to being more vulnerable to infection, socioeconomically disadvantaged populations and marginalized racial/ethnic minorities are less likely to have access to health care, more likely
Spring of 2009 in the US, there was an appearance of widespread influenza A (pH1N1) which affected school aged children of ages 18 years and younger. It is critical to understand the appearance of the influenza virus and the factors in the population because children play an important role in the spread of influenza virus. The school year of 2009-2010, we assessed several of the Pennsylvania Influenza Sentinel School Monitoring System (PISSMS). They are a voluntary system of schools that reports data regarding absenteeism and trips to the school nurse for influenza-like illnesses (ILI). Contributors included participating schools and nonparticipating schools to evaluate representativeness. Participating schools provided data regarding absenteeism
There have been a couple of suggestions made to get more school aged children vaccinated. One idea is the creation of school-located clinics (SLC), or vaccine clinics that are held in schools, which is very convenient for families. These clinics vaccinate large numbers of children efficiently at lower costs than public or primary care clinics, and overall, for example, save families approximately $171.96 per household during an entire flu season (Cawley & Rousculp, 2010). Some may worry that having vaccine clinics in schools will decrease the contact that children have with their primary provider. Cawley & Rousculp (2010) state there is little evidence to support this
One of the most common places for the spread of infectious diseases are schools and daycare centers. Children can easily contract diseases from infected objects and from other children. Influenza is a viral respiratory illness affecting thousands of children and adults each year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2013), an average of 20,000 children under the age of 5 suffer from flu-related complications and end up hospitalized every year. In addition to respiratory illnesses, children also contract gastrointestinal and skin illnesses in schools and daycare centers. Respiratory illness and gastrointestinal illness both rank as major causes of morbidity in young children. Prevention is the best defense against
As a result, the burden placed on the health care system is significantly reduced. Therefore, people at a high risk of contracting influenza should seriously consider being vaccinated. Evidence suggests that educating high-risk people about the influenza vaccine is worthwhile. For example, during the influenza season of 2000-2001, 70% of adults 65 years of age and older received the flu shot. This suggests
Influenza is an infection not microscopic organisms that spreads generally from individual to individual it assaults the lungs, nose, and throat. Youthful kids, more established grown-ups, pregnant ladies, and individuals with interminable sickness or frail invulnerable frameworks are at high hazard.
According to Healthy People 2020 a goal of theirs is to “increase immunization rates and reduce preventable infections.” The influenza virus is one of these preventable infections, which can cause serious harm to patients. The influenza virus is known as the “flu.” Everyone in his or her life has had some experience with the flu, whether that is himself or herself or a family member. What if there was a way to ensure people from contracting a strain of the influenza virus? Well, thanks to technology and medical research there is.
Viruses can have a negative impact not only children but a whole population: “500,000 children still die each and every year from measles” (Allman 3). Measles are also called rubeola, it is a contagious respiratory infection, it causes a skin rash over the entire body. The symptoms fairly similar to the flu, including a fever, cough, and runny nose, although it is very rare in the US there are only 20 million cases filed each year. The virus lives in the nose and throat mucus of an infected person. It spreads through coughing and sneezing. The virus can live up in the air up to two hours in an airspace where the infected person coughed or sneezed or spread any of their germs. While illnesses are getting spread around it could lead to more
The problem explored into this essay is the Influenza (flu) vaccine and if it should be compulsory for the students attending the International School of Amsterdam. Before going into details about the vaccine itself it is key to understand what Influenza is. The flu is a virus. Viruses are parasite which cause the infection and spread of diseases such as smallpox, chicken pox or in this case influenza1. Viruses enter a body which will be their host for the remaining of time. They attach themselves to a cell of the body and eventually with all the other cells leading to inevitable contamination of the hosting body1. This event can occur due to the size of the virus, which is around 8 times smaller than an E. Coli bacterium1. The virus of Influenza