Competency

Analyze communicable diseases and their potential impact on public health.

Scenario

Your supervisor has asked each public health nurse to research a different communicable disease and prepare a communication document about the disease. These communication documents will be used to support your department in better understanding the public health issues, the potential consequences to the population, and the actions that public health nurses can take to educate and provide services for the population.As the senior public health nurse in your department, your supervisor has requested that you select your communicable disease to research first and then they will assign your coworkers their communicable disease topic.

Instructions

Part One – Select one communicable disease from the list below, and research the communicable disease:

• Vaccination rates of children and any outbreaks
• Rates of influenza among those over 65
• Rising rates of new HIV rates of infection.
• High immigrant community and concern about Ebola, Zika, or SARS
• New cases of acute flaccid myelitisRising rates of sexually transmitted diseases
• Salmonella outbreak
• Rising rates of hepatitis

Part Two – Prepare a communication document that:

• Explains the selected communicable disease’s impact or potential impact on public health.
• Analyzes data using correct epidemiologic terminology on the communicable disease (from the surveillance sources’ websites provided below).
• Explains the potential impact on the population if this communicable disease is not addressed, with a focus on the social impact and the emotional distress to the community.
• Examines nursing interventions that have been proven effective in similar communities.
• Details the action steps that can be taken by public health nurses to prevent and control the communicable disease, including education strategies.
• Provides stated ideas with professional language and attribution for credible sources with correct APA citation, spelling, and grammar in the communication document.

Reflect on your clinical skill practice (in the clinical setting and/or for required videos) by writing your response to the following prompts:

• Describe your experience with physical assessment over the first half of this course. (What components of the exam have you completed?  Completed head and neck assessment, abdomenal assessment. With what aspects of assessment are you most familiar and confident? With what aspects of assessment are you least familiar and confident? What experience have you had with pediatric, adult, and geriatric patients?)
• Share the most exciting aspect of your skill practice to this point.
• Share the aspect of assessment you have found to be most challenging.
• How have your learning experiences in this course affected your current nursing role? My nursing role – pediatric nurse supervisor.
• What steps will you take to overcome challenges, and increase proficiency and efficiency in your performance?