H430HSC4500 epidemiology RU The 2022 Meningococcal Disease Outbreak in Florida Discussion

Directions:

Describe a health issue in your state using epidemiological data. You should be able to use that data to describe how severe the health issue is. What recommendations would you make to address this health issue?

Due dates for your initial and response posts can be found by checking the Course Syllabus and Course Calender.

EXAMPLE from Teacher

Instructor Model Post:

Every country and state in which each of us resides has its own unique health experiences and challenges due to a variety of reasons such as access to healthcare and access to healthy food choices. Below is an example of how you can tackle this weeks initial post:

I currently reside in the upper Midwest in the state of Minnesota. Griping our nation currently is the covid-19 pandemic. Rather than discuss this, I will discuss a condition that gripped my local area, the meningitis outbreak of 1995. In January of that year, it became very apparent that a microorganism was wreaking havoc within this south central Minnesota community. Through samples taken it was identified that the bacterium Neisseria meningitidis was the causative agent of the meningitis cases. There were 8 confirmed cases and 1 presumptive case initially. These cases were among individuals 18 years of age or younger (there was 1 outlier and that individual was 64 years of age). Data initially was collected by local health facilities and quickly grew to a more robust methodology of collecting information to ensure that the public was kept safe and informed.

The reason that this condition causes such alarm amongst public health officials is because of how quickly it not only can spread but also how quickly it can affect a seemingly healthy individual. Meningitis can infect the bloodstream or the lining around the brain and spinal cord. This disease can kill within 6 hours. A person could go to bed thinking they had a bad cold and simply never wake up.

Considering the time in which this occurred, health officials (local and state) did a fantastic job of informing the public of not only what was occurring but the steps they could take to keep themselves safe. Television and radio ads were the primary source of disseminating information but additionally phone and mail methods were used as well. The only thing I would change is update the communication methods to go along with the times. By that I mean I would also utilize social media platforms and email as well.

References:

Siegel, Barry (1995, May 7). COLUMN ONE : Outbreak Strikes a Small Town : The first two cases of meningitis might be coincidental, Mike Osterholm thought. But the third sent Minnesota’s top disease sleuth to Mankato to battle a familiar–and deadly–foe. Los Angeles Times. Retried from

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-05-07-mn-63506-story.html