Recommendations for Addressing STDs in Indiana

Posted: August 27th, 2021

Recommendations for Addressing STDs in Indiana

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Recommendations for Addressing STDs in Indiana

Background Information

The research already identifies STDs as a health issue that requires considerable attention from all stakeholders to save Indiana from further infection. It is worrying that despite some of the adopted regulatory measures, the state continues to witness escalating numbers in infection. STDs such as chlamydia, gonorrhea, and HIV/AIDS have seen a steady increase in the recent past, which challenge interveners to be keener while implementing recommended measures. Expanding treatment programs offers a better chance to address the community’s needs concerning combating STIs. For example, Shannon and Klausner (2019) propose intensifying local campaigns that target infected and affected people and give necessary care. Such plans succeed when team members collaborate with different stakeholders because this offers a chance to reach a wider audience. The plan is likely to achieve the best results if interveners focus on specific populations to ease gathering data and offering necessary assistance. Nevertheless, the mitigation approach would benefit if interveners embrace proper communication techniques and evaluation methods and strive to manage attribution.

Appropriate Technical and Professional Communication Strategies

The public health program will succeed if those in charge embrace proper technical and professional communication strategies. Initially, the campaigners should consider certain factors that would allow effective delivery of the message to the targeted population. Communicators should pay more attention to the issue and not specific individuals (Reddy & Gupta, 2020). They should communicate what they plan to do to address the problem rather than dwell on matters that may not deal with the situation in its entirety. Communicators should be genuine in the way they express their ideas instead of being manipulative in their approach. Besides, it is essential to be flexible towards others by allowing other parties into the intervention to account for their points of view (Reddy & Gupta, 2020). Other than applying the strategies for proper verbal communication, it is essential to avoid barriers to listening that could derail the campaign process. Communicators, in this case, should avoid criticizing other speakers, and instead, they should pay attention to what they say. Interveners need to focus on the message and not the messenger. Health workers in the program need to avoid barriers to listening by avoiding distractions, including those emanating from emotional and external noise (Reddy & Gupta, 2020). Emotional noise refers to the reactions communicators make in response to the cues and gestures that listeners show. In contrast, external noise refers to any audible noise that could distract a communicator’s attention and way of expression. Therefore, by applying various strategies, campaigners can increase effectiveness of the messages delivered to raise the public awareness of the issue.

The health program would succeed when interveners embrace some of the available theories of communication. A suitable framework, in this case, could be social learning theory, which suggests that new perceptions and behaviors can be acquired by mitigating and observing others (Reddy & Gupta, 2020). Consequently, the audience would want to lead a life like that of health workers who understand the need to be safe from STIs. However, the process may not achieve the targeted objectives if health workers do not apply the suggested communication strategies.

Evaluation Methods

The intervening team should embrace proper evaluation methods to determine whether the public health program yields the anticipated outcomes. Strategic evaluation entails collecting information about how effective the strategic plan is in proceeding (Fynn, Hardeman, Milton, & Jones, 2020). The process seeks to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of the enacted strategy in attaining the organizational goals and taking corrective measures wherever needed (Fynn et al., 2020). A suitable way to evaluate the progress is to evaluate the number of people who turn out for STI tests and start medication. The process would be termed successful when health workers reach out to many people within targeted populations and put many infected people under medication. A high turnout means that people have accepted the program and are willing to know their status and possibly treat any confirmed cases. However, a low turnout would tell that not many people appreciate the initiative and may not be willing to give their health information. Such a condition would leave many people not knowing their status, facilitating the rate of infection. Another possible evaluation method that would help the team see whether it is headed in the right path is monitoring the program’s amount of money. Spending money on testing, treating, and educating people compels the team to reconsider its approaches, especially when spending funds. Fynn et al. (2020) inform that spending highly throughout the process may render the group unable to meet some of its financial goals, thereby crippling the sustainability of the entire initiative. However, failing to use the evaluation methods could deny health workers the chance to know whether they are headed on the right path in addressing the case of STDs in Indiana or not.

Dealing with Attribution

The program will attend to attribution so that the progress on objectives appears as relating to the program instead of other factors that are happening simultaneously in the program. An effective way to handle this problem is to plan to perform specific operations rather than start the activity without any proper plans. Creating a plan allows the intervening team to strive towards meeting the targeted aspirations related to the programs. A plan offers the chance to avoid distraction by other things that are happening simultaneously in the public health program. Besides following a plan, the team will use a checklist to ensure that it goes through each process rather than handling the operations without knowing which comes fast. A list helps to ensure that the group conducts all the needed activities without succumbing to the effects of other activities that happen at the same time the program takes place. Nevertheless, paying little attention to ways of handling attribution could have some adverse impact on the agenda.

Conclusion

It is essential to pay considerable attention to several critical elements to proceed with the public health program on the right path. It is necessary to use effective communication strategies that allow the target audience to give their views towards the mitigation measures. Communicators should avoid all forms of distraction, including those that could affect listening. Health workers in charge of the program should use evaluation methods to determine whether the practice is headed towards the right path. Several  techniques should be applied to assess if the group is directed towards the right way or more needs to happen to rectify anomalies. Finally, the intervening team should manage attribution as effectively as possible using a proper plan and checklist.

References

Fynn, J., Hardeman, W., Milton, K., & Jones, A. (2020). A scoping review of evaluation frameworks and their applicability to real-world physical activity and dietary change programme evaluation. BMC Public Health, 20(1000), https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-020-09062-0

Reddy, V., & Gupta, A. (2020). Importance of effective communication during COVID-19 infodemic. Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care, 9(8), 3793-3796. doi:10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_719_20

Shannon, C., & Klausner, J. (2019). The growing epidemic of sexually transmitted infections in adolescents: A neglected population. Current Opinion in Pediatrics, 30(1), 137-143. doi:10.1097/MOP.0000000000000578