Discuss how the U.S. should prepare for the future of public health. For example, discuss some considerations to prepare for and reduce any effects from a bioterrorism attack, prepare for natural disasters, and plan for community disaster preparedness. In your summation, provide your thoughts about establishing members of a multidisciplinary task force to improve the health and welfare of society for self-betterment, improve lives, and help individuals see a better future.
cite your sources in your work and provide references for the citations in APA format.
Respond to 2 responses attached .
Response #1
In my opinion, in order to truly consider ourselves relatively effective or successful as a nation, the United States must operate from a state of preparedness in terms of public health. Although many individuals may associate the term public health with primarily the illness prevention or medical side of the phrase, I think that doing so is not only not holistic, but also short sighted. In order to be truly effective in this term, the United States must step beyond healthcare in terms of public health and become more inclusive of potential issues as they relate to future complications, specifically in terms of bioterrorism, increasingly raging natural disasters, and even pandemic related disasters. In doing so, the United states must consider not only the cost of the public health preparedness in terms of fiscal output, but also the cost in terms of manpower.
For example, during the recent COVID pandemic, many healthcare facilities found themselves severely understaffed and overwhelmed by the number of patients in need (Andel et al., 2022). This shortage greatly complicated the already extraordinarily high incident numbers of the disease and essentially left the United States struggling to combat it (Andel et al., 2022). Perhaps in the future, the country could begin to put more resources and incentives in places for the training of new nurses and healthcare professionals to enter the field. Additionally, those healthcare professionals who are in the field now would warrant more consistently funded training and refreshening on how to respond to disasters and pandemics as well. Personally, I think that establishing a multidisciplinary task force or team is one of the most effective ways to go about community preparedness in terms of public health. No one discipline has a monopoly on ideas when it comes to addressing public health concerns. In order to prove truly effective, there has to be an inter and intradisciplinary sharing of communal ideas and protocol across the board as a means of not only promoting preparedness but preventing public health threats where possible along the way.
Reference:
Andel, S. A., Tedone, A. M., Shen, W., & Arvan, M. L. (2022). Safety implications of different
forms of understaffing among nurses during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Journal of
advanced nursing, 78(1), 121-130. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.14952
response #2
Positive public health is key to a more productive and enriched society. Throughout time, continuous illnesses have taken a toll on public health, translating to the future development of current and future society. However, with each epidemic and pandemic, there has been extensive knowledge obtained to preserve and prevent for future occasions. The question is what the U.S. can do to prepare for the future of public health? To do this efficiently the U.S., would have to start by looking at previous cases and precautions that were taken to improve public health. As the authors of the following article describe public health as a topic that focuses on denominators, maximizing health can be attributed to the involvement of civil society, innovation of public and private sectors, as well as improved health care and public health action (Frieden, 2015). Multiple factors contribute to the improvement of current public health preparedness, many articles and research state that adequately increasing public health and disease prevention funds is the route to take in the prevention of crisis response (TFAH, 2021). The same article presents data on the country’s spending on healthcare, which is $3.8 trillion, and only 2.6% is focused on public health and prevention (TFAH, 2021). There are a lot of factors that the U.S. government needs to consider when it comes to ensuring the most effective strategies for increasing the productivity of public health. The health security of the U.S. is determined by the efficiency and strength of the public health system. This means that many resources are considered for the strength of public health, one of these is the CDC. The CDC is responsible for the education and treatment of most public health-related issues.
Reference:
Frieden, T. R. (2015). The future of public health. New England Journal of Medicine, 373(18), 1748-1754.
TFAH. (2021 ). Staffing up: Public Health Workforce must grow to provide basic public health for all Americans. Retrieved from: https://www.tfah.org/story/staffing-up-public-health-workforce-must-grow-to-provide-basic-public-health-for-all-americans/#:~:text=To%20combat%20the%20growing%20public,the%20social%20determinants%20of%20health.