PUBH7101(7289) Communicable Disease Management and Control (for Medicine)
Assessment Task 3: Short Answer Question Assignment
Total Marks: 40
Due date: 14:00 on Monday, 8 November 2021
Instructions:
There are 5 questions that have equal value (8 marks). Answer each question and submit via the Assessment task 3: FINAL SUBMISSION Turnitin link provided in the Assessment folder on the Learn.UQ site.
Each page must contain your name and student number in the footer.
Answers can be provided in a short form but must be grammatically correct. No references are required.
The word guide for each question is between 300-400 words.
QUESTION 1 Surveillance system evaluation
The Australian Government established OzFoodNet in 2000 as a collaborative initiative with Australia’s state and territory health authorities to provide national capacity to identify and respond to outbreaks of foodborne diseases and to provide information on foodborne disease. Information about and reports from OzFoodNet are available from https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/cdna-ozfoodnet.htm.
Describe the OzFoodNet surveillance system using the framework provided in the Updated Guidelines for Evaluating Public health Surveillance Systems, Centres for Disease Control (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5013a1.htm). Your evaluation must include information under the following headings:
1. List the purpose and objectives of the system.
2. Describe the planned uses of the data from the system.
3. Draw a flow chart of the system.
4. Describe the components of the system:
a. What is the population under surveillance?
b. What is the period of time of the data collection?
c. What data are collected and how are they collected?
d. What are the reporting sources of data for the system?
e. How are the system’s data analyzed and disseminated?
5. Indicate the level of usefulness by describing the actions taken as a result of analysis and interpretation of the data from the public health surveillance system.
6. Describe each of the following system attributes:
a. Simplicity
b. Flexibility
c. Data quality
d. Acceptability
e. Sensitivity
f. Predictive value positive
g. Representativeness
h. Timeliness
i. Stability
Resource: Clothier HJ, Fielding JE, Kelly HA. An evaluation of the Australian Sentinel Practice Research Network (ASPREN) surveillance for influenza-like illness. Commun Dis Intell Q Rep. 2005;29(3):231-47. PMID: 16220859.
QUESTION 2 Behaviour change
Australia aims to virtually eliminate transmission of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) by 2022. A recent article (https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/can-australia-be-the-first-country-to-eliminate-hi) questioned progress towards this goal:
‘I don’t think we can get to zero with our current technology and understanding of HIV, but we might be able to virtually eliminate HIV from other sub-groups,’ he said.
‘To break that down, it is feasible [to virtually eliminate HIV] for blood transfusions which have very low levels, mother-to-child transmissions, and people who inject drugs.
‘But it is much harder for sexual transmission – this is our challenge, as [this group has] a lot more infections and we are way off our targets at the moment.’
The article identified the need to increase the use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to prevent transmission in high-risk groups:
But there is still some progress to achieve the PrEP (Pre-exposure prophylaxis) coverage target, with only 21% coverage in 2018, despite new research from the Kirby Institute that men-who-have-sex-with-men (MSM) who are HIV-negative prefer PrEP over condoms, with daily usage or on-demand PrEP jumping from 1% to 31% over the previous five years.
You are a health promotion officer in the Sexual Health Unit, and you have been asked to contribute to a Ministerial briefing document designed to secure funding for a project to increase the uptake of PrEP in men-who-have-sex-with-men (MSM).
You decide to use the Health Belief Model (Week 9), which proposes that health actions are explained by the balance between:
Task:
1. Describe how the Health Belief Model explains the low uptake of PrEP by MSM in Australia
2. Using your explanation in part 1, describe how the Department of Health can improve communication with MSM to increase the use of PrEP (hint: remember who, what, where and how)
You will need to find additional published resources that provide information on behavioural and other factors associated with HIV transmission in MSM to assist in this task. It may also be useful to look at the National HIV Strategy (https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/ohp-bbvs-1/$File/HIV-Eight-Nat-Strategy-2018-22.pdf).
QUESTION 3 Infection Prevention and Control
You are a member of the Grassy Meadows Public Health Unit and you are part of the team developing a COVID-19 control plan for a local music festival that is held on a rural property outside a small regional town. Your task is to determine how to ensure standard and transmission-based Infection Prevention and Control precautions are implemented and maintained across the 7 days of the music festival.
Your task is to use the swiss-cheese model as a framework to describe and communicate the IPC practices and interventions, and factors that may decrease their effectiveness over the duration of the music festival.
Task: Complete the table below by:
• identifying the precautions
• Identifying where the responsibility lies (Individual (Personal) or Shared (Institutional))
• describing the factors that may lead to a decrease in their effectiveness
• describing what could be done to minimise the impact of those factors
Resources:
Standard and transmission-based precautions: https://www.safetyandquality.gov.au/our-work/infection-prevention-and-control/standard-and-transmission-based-precautions-and-signage
Swiss Cheese model:
Precaution or intervention Responsibility (personal or shared) Factors impacting efficacy Strategies to minimise decrease
Personal
Shared/institution
QUESTION 4 Guidelines
Provision of safe (pathogen free) drinking water is a critical tool in preventing water-borne enteric diseases such as Cholera and Typhoid. Australia and the United Kingdom have taken different approaches to ensuring the safety and quality of drinking water available to consumers in their respective jurisdictions. In Australia, the safety of drinking water is achieved through the implementation of guidelines whereas the United Kingdom introduced legislation to mandate the provision of safe water for consumers.
You have been engaged as a public health expert by the Australian Federal Government to contribute to a review of the National Water Quality Management Strategy (https://www.waterquality.gov.au/about).
Your task is to compare and contrast the Australian and UK approaches and identify arguments for or against a change in Australia’s policy to introduce legislation rather than the current guidelines to ensure the safety and quality drinking water.
Hint: It will help if you include evidence of different drinking water safety and quality in each jurisdiction as part of your critique.
Resources:
Australia: https://www.waterquality.gov.au/guidelines; https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/about-us/publications/australian-drinking-water-guidelines#block-views-block-file-attachments-content-block-1
United Kingdom: https://www.dwi.gov.uk/ and http://www.environmentlaw.org.uk/rte.asp?id=291
QUESTION 5 Management of a zoonosis
The following diagram presents the complex transmission cycle of Staphylococcus aureus, which includes methicillin resistant S. aureus (MRSA). The figure is taken from Rossi et al. (2016).
Rossi G., Cerquetella M., Attili A.R. (2016) Amphixenosic Aspects of Staphylococcus aureus Infection in Man and Animals. In: Bagnoli F., Rappuoli R., Grandi G. (eds) Staphylococcus aureus. Current Topics in Microbiology and Immunology, vol 409. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/82_2016_2
Task 1: Using the above diagram identify four (4) key stakeholders and perform an analysis of each stakeholder by completing the table below.
Task 2: Use the stakeholder analysis to develop and describe one (1) intervention that would involve at least two stakeholders. Include information about roles and responsibilities for each stakeholder and any issues that would need to be considered when designing and implementing the intervention. These issues could include social, economic or technical factors or issues related to governance.
PUBH7101/7289 One Health Stakeholder analysis worksheet
Who are the stakeholders? What are their needs/issues? Do they have power to act?
Stakeholder name:
What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses?
Opportunities for response Barriers to response