Red Project Reflection

Throughout my undergraduate journey at Morgan State University, I constantly heard of the most infamous rumor that has been passed down for decades: Morgan State was ranked with the highest rate HIV/AIDS and 80% of the students attending the university were HIV positive. As a health education major, this did not sit with me well, and I started to conduct some research to prove whether this infamous rumor had any actuality. I wanted to utilize what I learned as a health education and promotion major. Using my knowledge from my Assessment, Implementation, & Evaluation of Health Promotion Programs course, I implemented a program called the Student Wellness Ambassador Team also known as S.W.A.T. SW.A.T is dedicated to HIV/AIDS and STI

“Let’s create an AIDS/HIV-free generation”, which is not only a slogan that was proposed by President Obama but also a goal that I would like to achieve on my future career path. My practicum project at the Department of Health and Human Services was to generate dataset of new AIDS/HIV cases in Houston/Harris area required by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and then to use ArcGIS software to make a map describing the new diagnosed in Houston area. The final products can be spatially lined to other sources to enhance understanding of social determinants of health affecting populations impacted by HIV. This practicum experience let me realize that AIDS spreads so quickly is because most people have insufficient knowledge or misconception about the disease and prevention. Becoming a pharmacist to provide prevention service and educate people to improve their health and wellbeing is how I want to reach the goal of creating an AIDS/HIV-free generation.

Education of HIV/AIDS is very important to help prevent from becoming infected with this deadly disease. There are many factors that are being looked at that may be associated with the affect of the transmission of HIV such as, gender relationships, social exclusion and poverty, etc. These issues happen every day and health care providers must help those infected with HIV/AIDS to start treatment right away (Mayo Group, 2010). A national health policy must formulate different guidelines what will enable the policy to help the government govern the public. This stage is really important to help bring health care policies together.

This deal with addressing the community, family and social networks that people are part of. Nurses should in this case analyze the different social environments that people live in so as to successfully address the AIDs pandemic. This is mainly due to the fact that people may tend to form their attitudes towards the disease depending on their social network. Nurses should form groups, and educate the people as a community, about the effects of the disease on both the community and family, an undertaking which will raise awareness among the community members. This is likely to help the community to be cautious and responsible for their actions, as well as prevent the promotion of any negative values that may increase chances of people in the society acquiring the disease (Levine & What Works Working Group, 2007). Additionally, nursing should address the issue of stigma that family and social networks have towards the AIDs pandemic and those suffering from it, and which hinder people from seeking help and knowing their status (Qubuda & Mphumela, 2009).

There are many health problems that we face globally and each of them are important for us to be aware of and to take precautions and measures to prevent and treat such diseases that affect our global population. HIV/AIDS is a disease that is spread through direct contact with body fluids from a person who is infected with the virus, these fluids include blood, semen, rectal fluid, vaginal fluids and breast milk. There are an approximate 35 million people living with the disease globally as of 2015 and about 1 million of those people are children under the age of 15 (Aids.gov, 2016). There are approximately 1.2 million people in the U.S. living with the disease and of those individuals many became infected with HIV by needle or syringe sharing,

In today’s world we seem to put aside things that we consider no longer a threat. Well we are wrong to do this, because HIV/AIDS still affects over 5.4 million people that are walking around with this infection or full blown AIDS. They are friends, Criminals, neighbors, and even children attending school, etc. So, why do we think it is ok to not worry about a problem that does not have a cure, but only a life time of meds? Within this qualitative research method, we will explore Sexual risk, there or the Measures, Sexual risk, method, demographics, HIV/AIDS risk and may add other areas as they relate to this study.

Over the course of a month, I dedicated time to volunteer with agencies that focus on providing safe and productive programs for children. Stop Child Abuse Now also known as SCAN, focuses on stopping/preventing child abuse in homes. This agency teams with many different agencies around Richmond to help parents and children coop and learn way to avoid situations of abuse. My duty for volunteering was teaming with Virginia Commonwealth University Health Services and making SCAN a known organization throughout Richmond community. VCU threw a wellness block party that included many different health services but also gave members of the community to learn and seek help with many different organizations that were there promoting their business or organization. I sat with one other girl and passed out flyers and contact information to those who were interested in the organizations. I explained to individuals what the program was about and the benefits of the program. I had one particular interaction with this young mother who explained she was in a situation where children were being abused and the authorities were notified and now she’s seeking counseling for her and the children involved. I and the other young lady volunteering with me were able to give her information on the program and also contact numbers to individuals that could help her situation. This young woman was very grateful and happy she found an organization that could assist her with her situation. From this

I worked directly with the HIV/AIDS population as well as individuals whose behaviors place them at high risk for becoming infected. I am currently the Supervisor for the AIDS Institute Linkage and Navigation Program where I am responsible for overseeing the delivery of services. These services encompass but are not limited to entitlements, referral to agencies that assist with identifying appropriate housing, referral to medical, mental health and substance use services. I also, oversee treatment adherence services which support clients in their readiness to begin (ARV) antiretroviral therapy and maintain adherence to their prescribed medication for treatment for HIV/AIDS.

The Bradley-Reid Corporation addresses the HIV/AIDS epidemic by providing direct services to persons at risk for or diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. The organization also facilitates community conversations while implementing systems that strengthens its technical and management capacity. The organization's HIV/AIDS program activities include HIV risk prevention; HIV PreP awareness, HIV screenings; HIV/AIDS case management; self-care skills training; care giver skills training and peer educator training. Bradley-Reid further

According to the CDC (2015), more than one million people are living with HIV in the United States, and more than 50,000 become newly infected each year. Unfortunately, one in five Americans living with HIV are unaware of their infection. I believe using the strategy which stresses the use of the 10 essential services of public health will help reduce the incidence of HIV in our

I chose to volunteer at a Christnet Rotating Shelter Program that was at the time located at a local church. This program does not have a permanent location, rather, various accommodating churches host the program. Additionally, this program offers not only daytime programs, but also nightly shelter. However, for this assignment, I opted for an observation of the program’s participants at nighttime. Moving on, I showed up more than an hour early before the sign-in sheets would be distributed to individuals seeking shelter for the night so that I could assist the other volunteers with adjusting the layout of the room and assembling the tables and beds in order to accommodate the needs of the guests. Afterwards, people began to line up outside the church’s door about 6:15 p.m. even though

Just as clearly, experience shows that the right approaches, applied quickly enough with courage and resolve, can and do result in lower HIV infection rates and less suffering for those affected by the epidemic. An ever-growing AIDS epidemic is not inevitable; yet, unless action against the epidemic is scaled up drastically, the damage already done will seem minor compared with what lies ahead. This may sound dramatic, but it is hard to play down the effects of a disease that stands to kill more than half of the young adults in the countries where it has its firmest hold—most of them before they finish the work of caring for their children or providing for their elderly parents. Already, 18.8 million people around the world have died of AIDS, 3.8 million of them children. Nearly twice that many—34.3 million—are now living with HIV, the virus [9].

HIV/AIDS has not gone away and, through its ability to morph into new forms, continues to spread to new populations. Prevention is most often a direct result of behavioral change (Rowan, 2013). In order for any prevention programs to be successful there have to be an ample amount of self awareness on the domains of ethnicity and lifestyle which includes but not limited to the risk of HIV/AIDS (prevention article). Social work could and should exert leadership in many dimensions of the AIDS epidemic, which should include how to advance HIV care and protect communities (Rowan, 2013). We must approach intervention as an ongoing, comprehensive, and holistic process (Rowan, 2013).

All three potential investments address different approaches in reducing and eliminating the impact of HIV/AIDS, and all require differing degrees of health worker involvement. The first project focuses on reducing stigma; the second concentrates on reducing mother-to-child transmissions; and the third initiative emphasizes giving aid to children infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS. The following section will attempt to compare and rank the initiatives through the consideration of these factors: the sustainability of the project, assumptions that underlie the causes of poverty and ill health, environmental impact, and moral arguments for each option. By comparing the strength and weaknesses of each project, the purpose is to identify the

“People living with HIV are thriving and can continue, because those citizens got tested early enough to keep it under control”Increasing access to voluntary HIV testing”. This article explains further that everyone should be tested, and for those who have it can keep it under control and not let it further escalate into something fatal. Mandatory HIV testing can prevent a good deal of misunderstanding and it can also help prevent spreading diseases to other people. A very worried discussion when talking about HIV is the health care workers. HIV transmission in healthcare settings is what most are worried about; but although the the workers take a great risk working with needles, sharps, and contact with the people, HIV testing is overall beneficial to the people, and with correct