Human Immunodeficiency Virus

Human Immunodeficiency Virus

               Healthy People 2020 is an initiative by the federal government of America to build a nation that is healthier. It offers science-based studies with objectives for the next decade on how to improve the Americans’ health. For over 30 years, the program has monitored and created benchmarks meant to advocate the empowering of people, collaborations between communities and agencies, and measuring the outcomes of prevention undertakings. Healthy People 2020 has multiple overarching goals. Namely: longer lives that are free of injury, preventable diseases, disability, and untimely death; dispel disparity, achieve health equity, and enhance all groups’ health; establish physical and social environments that facilitate good health for everyone; and stimulate the quality of life through sound behaviors and developments in all phases of life.

From their website, their plan entails 42 topic areas, inclusive of 13 novel topics. The topics deal with numerous aspects of public health. There is a topic on “preparedness” and others showing the factors that influence public health like the “social determinants of health,” “public health infrastructure,” “access to health services,” and “occupational safety and health.” Most of the topics specifically talk about the critical diseases affecting the American population like HIV, cancer, diabetes, heart problems, dementia, blood disorders, among others.

HIV Topic

Out of all the diseases and disorders, HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) is a primary plague in the united states. Due to its severity, in 2010, it forced the White House to release a national strategy ingrained in July 2015 in the NHAS 2020. The strategy contains three aims, which are the reduction of the infections of HIV, decreasing the disparities and health inequalities related to HIV, and increasing the access to care for individuals living with HIV. The benefits that patients get are antiretroviral therapy, HIV prevention interventions, screening and treatment of other illnesses, and mental health services.

Another reason why the topic “HIV” is interesting is that the disease is preventable, yet a leading health concern. There exist effective interventions that prevent the contracting of HIV. Individuals who have tested positive for HIV can preserve their health with the use of antiretroviral therapy (ART). The treatment plan also shows to diminish the risks associated with the transmission of the virus by nearly 93%. People with HIV can make substantial changes in their behaviors, thus further advancing their health and decreasing the risks of infecting their partners.  Through these management plans, persons infected with HIV are healthier, live longer, and their lives are productive. Since the 1990s, deaths in the U.S. resulting from HIV/AIDs have drastically declined.

The goal of Healthy People 2020

The goal of the federal government in regards to the HIV issue is to ensure infection, illnesses and deaths are considerably prevented

Prevalence of HIV

In the American population, more than a million individuals have the virus, and roughly 130,000 of them are not aware they are infected. In 2015 diagnoses, there were health disparities in HIV infections in terms of gender, ethnicity, and race. The infections are significantly present in the male characters, with a percentage of 81. The bisexual or gay men were forming more than half. These homosexual men are more at risk than their heterosexual counterparts due to their behaviors. Concerning ethnicity and race, African Americans form 45%, whites 27%, and the Latinos/Hispanics 24%.

These facts are defended by the analysis results in the HIV objectives. The number of males and females infected was 32000 and 7000, respectively. Whereas African Americans, whites, and Hispanic totaled to 16,500, 10100, and 10,200 correspondingly. Contact between male-to-male resulted in 26,500 infections. Nonetheless, women’s infection resulting from heterosexual contact was higher than for men with the same contact. Out of 10,500 transmitted infections through the heterosexual method, 7,000 of them were women.

Topics Related to HIV topic

From the “overview” tab of HIV topic, four topics out of the 42 have been highlighted to be related to the HIV topic. The topics are family planning, sexually transmitted diseases (STD), adolescent health and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender health.

Sexually transmitted diseases are illnesses that are transmitted from one person to another, primarily through sexual contact. STD contracting results when an individual engages in unprotected oral, vaginal, or anal sex with a person carrying the infection. STDs are also known as venereal diseases or sexually transmitted infections. The most dangerous disease in this category is HIV. The others include syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, genital herpes, among others.

Healthy People 2020 recommends a myriad of interventions that can be used to meet their goal. A couple of them is abstinence and protected sex; using condoms. These two methods are mostly advised to adolescents due to their age, which serves as a high-risk factor. They are recommended to adhere to the interventions in order to prevent them from getting STD and pregnancy for girls. Therefore, the reason behind why the two topics; HIV and adolescent’s health, are related.

The lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender health topic is related to the HIV topic due to that the highest fraction of the affected population is as a result of homosexual contact. As mentioned above, male-to-male contact accounts for 26, 500 in 39,000 new infections. According to healthy People 2020, anal sex is the riskiest mode of sex for the transmission of HIV. The reason why the bisexual and gay men easily contract the virus. The condition is then reinforced by the negative attitudes- due to stigma, homophobia, and discrimination- this group of people has thus not utilizing preventive measures for HIV.

In the intervention section of the HIV topic, there is a systematic review from the Cochrane Library, which touches on the use of contraception in women living with HIV. From the article, behavioral interventions- education, contraceptive counselling and data dissemination- improve the use of contraceptive and its continuation in women. The contraceptive counseling benefits women living with HIV as they are able to meet their fertility goals of spacing children and delaying childbearing. This is one of the links that exist between HIV and family planning.

Improving the Outcomes in the HIV topic

In 10 years, the American government anticipates to have reached their targets in 23 outcomes. The target outcomes are divided into three; reduction of new HIV infections, increasing the testing and prevention of HIV, and increasing access to care. To do this, the government has presented numerous facts and statistics on its website. The sources of these data are credible and trustworthy. The statistics in their objectives are obtained from the Centre of diseases control and prevention (CDC) and the National HIV Surveillance System (NHSS). On the other hand, facts are concluded by carrying out a systematic analysis of works of literature. Most of the systematic reviews are done by the Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF), whereas a few (which are journal articles) have been obtained from databases such as Cochrane Library.

They have placed the statistics of their objectives so that they can be utilized by concerned bodies or stakeholders, therefore, aiding in the meeting of their goals. Secondly, through the reviews, the government offers recommendations to interventions that are effective revolving around treatments, reduction of risk behaviors, and identification of HIV positive individuals.

Conclusion

Analyzing of Healthy People 2020, or more so, HIV topic, revealed many significant issues. Some of the issues are shocking. For instance, HIV disparity in the American population. The highest affected individuals are men. Most of them contract the infection through heterosexual male-to-male contact.

The website has increases practitioners’ knowledge in ways of improving the quality of care for patients with HIV. From Evidence-Based Resources, health practitioners are made aware of the importance of communication in combating problems associated with HIV infections. Health promotion campaigns show to produce behavioral changes to their audience; influence the risk behaviors of individuals by changing their attitude, knowledge, and beliefs. The communications strategies can be through mass media, small media, social media, or interpersonal communication. Further, text messaging interventions increase medication adherence in patients with chronic diseases.

The incidence of HIV in the coming years will significantly reduce because of a good prognosis. Several interventions have been highlighted that increase the effectiveness of the screening techniques and help to advocate for the reduction of sexual risk behaviors. Additionally, PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) has been stabilized and globally recommended to people at high risk of acquiring the HIV.

Reference

Healthy People 2020. (n.d.). Healthy People 2020 |. Retrieved March 11, 2020, from https://www.healthypeople.gov/