History, Causation, Incidence, and Prevalence of Diseases
In this first week of class we will discuss the history, causation, incidence, and prevalence of diseases. We will trace where specific diseases have been and are at the present time. Each student will choose a specific disease to focus on for this week’s discussion. To make your choice, click into Choose a Topic for Week 1 DQ, at the bottom of this Week 1 module. Each disease can be chosen only once. You will look into the history and current status of this disease, checking reliable websites (not Wikipedia), the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control, and other scholarly sites. Then, proceed onto examining causation of disease. Chapters 14 & 16 in Gordis (2014) discusses the epidemiological process of linking causes to disease, starting with association, and progressing to causation. We will conclude with looking at the incidence and prevalence of each disease
With these thoughts in mind, for this week,
1. Share with your colleagues:
- Discuss your disease condition: its historical background, current status, and incidence/prevalence at a local, state, national, and global level.
- Apply a minimum of 2 epidemiological principles that are discussed in chapters 1-3 in Gordis (2014), chapters 1 & 2 that relate to the journey of the disease through time. Has there been a change in the disease incidence and prevalence over a period of time and why?
- What is the community and global impact of the disease?
- What environmental, genetic, social, physical, psychological, or other factors have a causal disease association and why?
- What public health measures have been taken to reduce the prevalence of the disease?
- Respond to three or more postings of your colleagues addressing different diseases, including:
- How can epidemiological principles be used in applying this knowledge to care of patients?
- What have you learned about infectious disease and epidemiology from this particular disease’s historical journey?
- Can you expand further on what your colleague posted about the disease’s impact, causes, or other contributing factors?
- What additional interdisciplinary public health measures can be taken to reduce the prevalence of the disease?
Remember the basic rules of posting:
- You must include citations to support what you write and they must be in APA format. At least one should be another source besides your texts and readings, and follow the basic rules of not more than 5 years old and be peer-reviewed scholarly sources.
- Emotion and intent clearly come through in this medium.
- Be courteous, non-judgmental, and supportive, even when you disagree.
- Postings must have substance: “I agree” or “Good posting” are examples of postings that do not meet this criteria and will not count as a required posting.
- Always check the grading rubric as you reply to ensure you meet all criterion and earn all the points possible.
- Review the grading rubric to ensure you are meeting all criteria.
Solution:
Epidemiology Week 1: HIV
Disease Condition
HIV is one of the most fatal viruses ever to attack humanity, and this status is in itself guaranteed by the role that HIV plays in the onset of AIDS, which continues to claim millions of lives every year all over the world. HIV is a virus that attacks the immune system in human beings, which technically ensures that individuals are incapable of combating the disease-causing bacteria and viruses that attack an individual’s body. HIV essentially transforms its victims into a hotbed of diseases after it progresses into AIDS, and it is this combination of diseases and the inability to combat them that results in the death of 1.1 million people annually across the world (WHO, 2017).
Having been discovered in the 1980s, the true nature of HIV was unknown and the little information available about this virus greatly impaired any efforts that were taken to curb it. While the true epidemiological origins of this virus remain unknown to date, the fact that HIV was first discovered among homosexual men in the US played a central role in the perceptions that both medics and the general population held regarding this disease (CDC, 2017). As such, in its early years, many medics believed that HIV was a disease that affected only homosexual men. To further add to this position, many medics also hypothesized that the engagement of individuals in homosexuality resulted in the occurrence of the disease. From this standpoint, it became commonplace for the general public to associate HIV with homosexuality.
However, over time, this perception was changed as more and more women were diagnosed with HIV, and this forced medical professionals to reconsider their stance on the connections between HIV and homosexuality. Over time, this discovery facilitated many medics into pursuing alternative theories regarding this virus and its epidemiology especially insofar as distribution and control were concerned. In the US, approximately 1.2 million people are living with HIV, and the rates of infection have been on a steady decline over the past decade (CDC, 2017). Similarly, HIV infection has declined across other regions of the world, with Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia having the highest rates of new HIV infection and HIV/AIDS-related deaths across the world (WHO, 2017). Much of this decline in HIV infection and deaths is attributed to increased awareness of HIV, practicing safe sex, and the accessibility of anti-retroviral drugs that help AIDS patients manage the disease.
Disease Progression in Incidence and Prevalence
There has been a significant change in the rates of HIV incidence and prevalence across the USA and the world at large in recent years. While increased awareness of the virus has helped overcome many of the stereotypes and myths regarding the transmission, infection, and management of the illness, it is the stellar epidemiological work of dedicated researchers and medical professionals that has helped combat this global epidemic. During the first few years after HIV was discovered among homosexual men, epidemiological principles provided a backbone that helped medics understand the disease and develop appropriate ways of managing it.
One of the principles used was that of contact management (Gordis, 2014). Seeing as HIV was first discovered in homosexual men, understanding the contacts that the infected individuals had with one another played a core role in managing the disease and its development through subsequent years (WHO, 2017). It is through such contact management that medics were able to prove that HIV was a disease that affected only homosexual men, seeing as some infected homosexual men had reported having sexual intercourse with heterosexual women. It is also from such the method of contact management that medics proved that HIV was transmitted through sexual intercourse, blood transfusions, exchange if blood with an infected person, and even through birth (Gordis, 2014). These discoveries had enabled the global healthcare sector to develop appropriate strategies to combat the spread of HIV within the global populace (Broeck & Brestoff, 2013). Such advances also played a core role in the development of anti-retroviral medication that has helped many infected individuals to manage the symptoms of HIV/AIDS.
The principle of case management has also played a core role in understanding the HIV virus and its role in causing AIDS (Gordis, 2014). Through the observation of various HIV-infected patients during the early years of this epidemic, research showed how HIV affects the immune system, how it reproduces, how it affects the different sexes, ethnicities, as well as what factors stand to increase the chances of infection among various social demographic groups across the world (Gordis, 2014; Smith, 2013). Through this combination of contact and case management principles in epidemiology, HIV awareness has increased across the USA and the world at large, resulting in corresponding declines in prevalence and incidence of HIV/AIDS (WHO, 2017). In this way, more people across the world have understood the risks of having unsafe sex, many mothers infected with HIV can now give birth to healthy and HIV-free children, and many individuals infected with HIV can manage the disease through anti-retroviral therapy to lead normal and happy lives.
Community and Global Impact
While death remains the single greatest impact of HIV/AIDS across the world, this disease also affects the human populace on both community and global scales. For many communities, the loss of loved ones, and especially parents is devastating. The death of parents from AIDS-related illnesses leaves many children orphaned while they are still young. This deprives many children the opportunity to enjoy and appreciate the benefits of growing up in loving homes. The fact that many orphaned children are often raised by a single parent or in orphanages also impairs the social and emotional development of many such children within the community (Smith, 2013). Moreover, the social stigma that often accompanies individuals for being HIV-positive can greatly impair the ability of an individual to play their role within the community fully. In some cases, such stigma even results in suicides or the abandonment of one’s family, both of which do very little to maintain the structure of the community (Smith, 2013). On a global scale, the loss of labor is perhaps the most devastating impact of HIV/AIDS. As many infected individuals struggle to combat the disease, they have less time available to work. When many HIV patients die, various economic sectors suffer from labor shortages, which ultimately either lowers the productivity of companies or increases the cost of doing business as companies are forced to pay their workers more and have them work longer hours to maintain the organization’s productivity (Smith, 2013). Either way, the global community suffers a great deal from the death or inability to work among HIV patients.
Factors with a Causal Association
While no factors have been directly linked to causing HIV within human beings, there are a number of factors that have been found to influence the transmission of HIV within populations across the world (Broeck & Brestoff, 2013). One of the social factors that play a core role in this respect is the culture of sex and its perception within a community. In regions where sex is often viewed as taboo before marriage, there are higher cases of incidence, prevalence, and death insofar as HIV is concerned. This is mainly because this culture impairs effective sex education which then limits the number of people that practice safe sex. This is one of the reasons why many third-world countries in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa have higher HIV prevalence, incidence and death compared to countries in Europe and North America where the culture does not view sex as being taboo (Smith, 2013). In essence, HIV does not discriminate along environmental, genetic, physical, psychological, genetic, or any other factors insofar as its transmission is concerned.
Public Health Measures
Upon its discovery, HIV instantly became a public health dilemma. Through activist groups such as Gay Men Health Crisis (GMHC) in the 1980s, the public was made more aware of the disease (Smith, 2013). Moreover, through such activist groups, the US government was pressured into developing affordable HIV anti-retroviral drugs to help infected individuals manage the disease. Today, free HIV testing is offered in many states, sex education is offered to children in public and private schools, and anti-retroviral drugs have been made cheaper and more accessible in the US and all over the world (Smith, 2013). It is through such efforts by the public health sector that HIV has slowly transformed from being identified an instant killer disease into a fully manageable disease that can still allow one to live a happy and long life. All these public health measures have worked well to reduce the prevalence and incidence of HIV/AIDS.
References
Broeck, J. & Brestoff, J. (2013). Epidemiology: Principles and Practical Guidelines (1st ed.). Dordrecht: Springer.
CDC,. (2017). HIV/AIDS | CDC. Cdc.gov. Retrieved 23 January 2017, from https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/
Gordis, L. (2014). Epidemiology (1st ed.). Elsevier Health Sciences.
Smith, R. (2013). Global HIV/AIDS activism, politics, and policy (1st ed.). Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO.
WHO,. (2017). HIV/AIDS. World Health Organization. Retrieved 25 January 2017, from http://www.who.int/hiv/en/