First, Healthcare associated infections. More than 1 million Americans are exposed to health care infections while receiving medical treatment. The CDC is working towards the elimination of healthcare related infections.
Second, HIV. Let's Stop HIV Together was launched to help overcome stigma and complacency. It is a national communication campaign that gave voice to the estimated 1.1million Americans living with HIV.
Third, CDC Vital Signs: Public Health Calls to Action. Vital signs reports data and calls to action on important public health issues. The CDC believes that by focusing on individual problems and using multimedia to promote them they can have success in getting the message out to Americans.
Fourth, Public Health Grand Rounds: Exploring PH Issues. Grand Rounds attempts to close the gap between science and communication. The main focus of these are HPV, teen pregnancy, and immunization.
Fifth, Million Hearts: Preventing Heart Attacks and Strokes. Nearly 800,000 people die each year due to CVD, accounting for 1/3 deaths and $300 billion in direct medical costs. CDC is working to prevent 1 million heart attacks and strokes by 2017.
Sixth, TIPS: Helping Smokers Quit. Tips from former smokers is a national ad campaign that will be released.
Seventh, Newborn Screening: Saving Babies Lives. Nearly 6,000 babies are born in the US with severe disorders, most of which are treatable. The CDC will be working with the Association of Public Health Laboratories to promote the benefits of newborn screening.
Eighth, Food Safety. The CDC data collection will better help to track where food borne outbreaks start, travel and and why the outbreak occurred.
Ninth, Heads Up to Parents. This program helps parents, coaches, and athletes to identify concussions caused by sport injuries. Currently, 800,00 copies have been distributed with more on the way.
Tenth, Children's Mental Health. Approximately 1/5 children in the US will be diagnosed with a mental, emotional or behavioral disorder this year (blogs.cdc.gov). The economic cost is $247 billion/year.
Eleventh, Clinical Preventable Services for Children and Adolescents. Screening for things such as developmental delays, vision screenings, tobaccos use counseling and more will be achieved through this initiative.
Twelfth, Preventable Parasitic Diseases. 1 million people are killed, disabled, or disfigured by parasitic diseases worldwide and millions in the US are infected (blogs.cdc.gov). The CDC is launching high quality screening that will help to screen and diagnose 15,000+ cases.
Thirteenth, Global Efforts to Prevent Violence Against Children. More than 1 billion children (half of the children in the world) are victims of violence each year. The CDC will expand and work with global partnerships to measure the amount of violence towards children that exists as well as develop ideas to combat this horrible issue.
Sources:
(1) http://blogs.cdc.gov/cdcworksforyou24-7/2013/01/cdc-looks-ahead-13-public-health-issues-in-2013/
(2) http://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/LetsStopHIVTogether2012-IndividualStories.html
(3) http://www.cdc.gov/about/grand-rounds/index.htm
(4) http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/campaign/tips/
Number one on the list definitely stand out to me, as I am involved in healthcare facilities and hope to have a career in some form of healthcare facility. It is well known among the employees in American hospitals that infectious agents are constantly being brought in and out of its doors and may be present on many of the hospitals surfaces. This awareness has led to utilization of many antimicrobial techniques. However, the current mechanisms of antimicrobial and antibiotic use may actually be better categorized as abuse and could be contributing to the problem (Huttner et al., 2013). Interfering with natural selection processes, may in fact be creating pressure that causes more rapid development of resistant micro-organisms. Although it is important to continue to create more antimicrobials, their development may be minimally effective unless there is sufficient control of their use (Mouton, 2013). Many recommendations have been made by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to help limit the prevalence of antimicrobial-resistance, but implementation is not at sufficient levels. Hospitals must do more to improve antimicrobial use and to increase their efforts to detect, report, and control the spread of antimicrobial resistance. This will require support from hospital administration to cultivate a culture of ongoing support, education, and interdisciplinary work groups focused on this important issue (Ward et al., 2005). As public health and global health practitioners, we must consider long term implications of our actions and behave appropriately to help limit future problems.
ReplyDeleteWard, M. M., Diekema, D. J., Yankey, J. W., Vaughn, T. E., BootsMiller, B. J., Pendergast, J. F., et al. (2005). Implementation Of Strategies To Prevent And Control The Emergence And Spread Of Antimicrobial‐Resistant Microorganisms In U.S. Hospitals. Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, 26(1), 21-30.
Mouton, J. W. (2013). Controlling antimicrobial resistance: Interfering in the process of natural selection. Antimicrob Resist Infect Control, 2(32), 1.
Huttner A, Harbarth S, Carlet J, Cosgrove S, Goossens H, Holmes A, Jarlier V, Voss A, Pittet D. (2013). Antimicrobial resistance: a global view from the 2013 World Healthcare-Associated Infections Forum. Antimicrob Resist Infect Control. 2013 Nov 18; 2(1):31
I agree I think obesity definitely should be included in there goals and I'm very surprised that its not. I just read an article that discussed that we are going the wrong way in terms of addressing obesity. By addressing obesity would also cut down on the heart attacks and strokes and possibly even the newborn diseases. I also think its interesting how many children are being diagnosed with mental illnesses and honestly it kind of makes me worried. I think we really need to address the living situations and healthy eating during pregnancy and early childhood.
ReplyDelete