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Identifying and Engaging stakeholder
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Executive summary.
This paper provides the analysis and evaluation of the roles that can be played by different stakeholders toward the prevention HIV/AID’S. The paper starts by describing different aspects which should be considered when engaging different stakeholders. Details of the different aspects such as the resources needed are well illustrated in the paper. In addition, the paper discusses different determinants that bring about the occurrence of the health issue which is HIV/AID’S. The paper finds that the effects of the health issue are widely spread which negatively impacts the community in different ways. The reasons to why stakeholders should be involved in the planning, evaluation, and implementation of the interventions are clearly spelled out. The report recognizes that different stakeholders play essential roles towards the success of the intervention process. It is argued that the involvement of the stakeholders will help in the educating general population.
The paper continues to analyze different stakeholders and their respective roles. The paper recognizes the critical role played by the health departments both local and state health departments. Also, the importance of local community is also described by the paper. The relationship between the stakeholders is seen as the crucial towards the prevention of the health issue in the state of Imaginaria. The paper finalizes by describing different recommendations and strategies that can be used during identifying and engaging the stakeholders. Challenges faced in engaging the stakeholders are identified as well as the various strategies that can be used to initiate the process.
Introduction
Aspects to consider when engaging stakeholders
Early and best practices in the prevention and HIV care have the ability to improve the outcomes of the patient and also offer informed practices (Mugavero et al., 2012). Engagement with different stakeholders in the community has demonstrated a success in achieving the desired outcomes that are based on the objectives of HIV prevention. In this scenario, there is a need for prevention of HIV/AIDS in Imaginaria through engaging different stakeholders. This paper will discuss engagement with individuals that have HIV/AIDS as a prevention-focused public health practice.
There are various aspects that have to be considered when engaging stakeholders in the intervention process. Time, energy, and resources play a vital role when engaging the stakeholders to bring success for the initial intervention, but not keep the stakeholder engagement. HIV/AIDS is a pandemic around the globe so the effect of one community may not go out of bounds within a 25 miles radius, but it will change the population. If educated there is a high chance of people practicing safer sex, not needle-sharing, and occupational hazards decreasing. By educating the general population on ways to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS money is going to be needed to come from somewhere, whether it be donors or fund-raising. This is why I feel there will not be prolonged interest with the stakeholder of the general population.
It is important when looking at HIV/AIDS to consider mass media campaigns, behavioral interventions, medication reminders, and other strategies that have been shown to effectively encourage people to adopt and maintain risk reduction strategies. Overall these strategies include condom use, adherence to HIV treatment, and sterile injection practices. Education, training, and capacity building for health care providers are also important activities that can improve the ability of healthcare providers and systems and community-based organizations and their staff to provide high-quality HIV prevention, care, and treatment services efficiency and effectively (Date, 2017). In order to sustain these interventions and keep other stakeholders interested and involved, including the general population, money, and funding is something that will determine the success of the intervention.
It is important also, identify people that are at a high risk of being affected and encourage them to go for testing. If they are diagnosed positive, it is important to provide access to prevention and care programs. For the people of Imaginaria, testing and counseling are considered as one of the important strategies that can be used to struggle with the impacts of the disease epidemic. This is because testing is considered as the first step towards help and treatment. This is because once the individuals are aware of the infection and their status, the victims change their lifestyle which influences their behavior (Sikkema et al., 2010). Behavior change is important in stopping the virus spread.
Multilevel determinants of the public health issue
The effects of HIV/AIDS are widely spread out to humanity during the second half the 20th century and has had a profound social, cultural, demographic, economic and political impact on numerous countries around the globe. HIV probably started as a zoonotic infection at the beginning of the 20th century, that simmered in Africa but was facilitated by technological and cultural transformation of the second half of the 20th century to spread across the globe. Examples of the human and demographic cost of HIV include tremendous morbidity, disability, and mortality associated with HIV/AIDS. Over 20 million deaths have already resulted due to HIV/AIDS epidemic.
It has resulted in the reversal of gains in life expectancy in many sub-Saharan countries due to mortality among young adults. It has impacted the gains made in the child mortality due to deaths in infants and children. Death of young parents have resulted in the breakup of families and orphaning of millions of children who have either become homeless or are being raised by grandparents or relatives. HIV/AIDS has resulted in the economic cost at the family, societal, and the national levels. It has resulted in the loss or reversal of economic growth of many countries due to continuing loss of skilled and unskilled workers in the prime of their lives and loss of investment. The long period of illness, the loss of income, and the cost of caring for family members has impoverished many households. The loss of productive workforce and replacement cost of workers has affected many businesses. HIV/AIDS has resulted in high costs for governments including the cost of healthcare and diversion of resources from other health issues or education Generation of children have been impacted by the epidemic.
As the household are affected by HIV/AIDS, children are taken out of school to help with caregiving or earn an income (Esacove, 2016). Deaths of educators have eroded quality of education for children.
So, the HIV/AIDS epidemic has not only impact the current fabric of a society but also for the several generations.
Summary of Global HIV Estimates Globally, as of the end of 2015, about 37 million people are infected with HIV. About two million new HIV infections occur every year; about 47% of them are in women; 35% in young people aged 15-24 years; and about two-thirds of HIV infections are in are in sub-Saharan Africa. However, every country on the globe has had HIV/AIDS cases and deaths. Less than half the population in need of antiretroviral therapy globally have access to the drugs resulting in 1.1 million deaths due to AIDS in 2015.
Specialized programs for prevention are required in order to address the ongoing and immediate needs of the people that are living with HIV and the uninfected (García-Lerma, Paxton, Kilmarx, and Heneine, 2010). This is because HIV positive persons have faced challenges in sexual relations and sharing risks with those that are not infected. Through conducting positive programs, both individuals benefit in relation to accessing care, HIV treatment, and prevention of opportunistic infections. These programs are also important in addressing the needs of people that are living with HIV/AIDS. These needs include challenges for risk reduction, stigmatization, managing side effects, and therapies. For instance, individuals are prescribed for condoms to the infected individual and can also be encouraged to disclose their status.
Engaging stakeholders
Need for engaging stakeholders
All the stakeholders including the general population would need to be informed and also held accountable during the planning, planning, and evaluation in order to have the success of an intervention to prevent and control the spread of HIV/AIDS. The general population who are is not affected by AIDS/HIV would be interested in the success of this intervention because it would prevent the contraction of the disease (Curran, 2015). The intervention would allow education to the general population. Not only would they need these issues listed above, but there would need to be interventions at every level of the sociological model. For this intervention, there needs to be a strategy that is used in order to reach the general population. It is really important to use a community-based prevention. This can include preventing the onset of disease, stopping or slowing the progress of disease, reducing or eliminating the negative consequences of disease, increasing healthful behaviors that result in improvements in health and well-being, decreasing disparities that result in an inequitable distribution of health. Primary prevention is a key component that addresses risk factors before the disease occurs (Ward, 2015).
The downfall of community-based prevention is the need for sufficient funding for the programs and enough educated personnel to run the program. The general population would be interested in this intervention to, at last, prevent the contraction of HIV/AIDS and stop the spreading of the disease. This would then increase the health of the general population.
Stakeholders analysis
The general population plays more of a subject matter expert because they are needing to be educated in order to keep them engaged. The general population are primary stakeholders because they are the “people or groups that stand to be directly affected, either positively or negatively, by an effort or the actions of an agency, institution, or organization” (Section 8, 2018). The general public would play a secondary role mostly because in order for them to practice methods to protect against the contraction of disease they are going to need to be educated by possibly another stakeholder such as: a physician, nurse, community analyst, environmental scientist, or even someone from the local health department. According to the community toolbox, the general population if not kept interested and involved will cause the entire intervention to fail. This stakeholder is the main aspect of this intervention because they are the individuals who are first hand physically affected by contracting HIV/AIDS. To add in another group who would be highly affected would be the healthcare professionals who work with patients who have AIDS because there would be room to be less precautious due to the risk of contracting AIDS/HIV from needles or coming in contact with a patient’s blood.
Local and state health departments play a critical role in government to monitor, protect, and care for the public’s health. Specially speaking, the state health department has the ability to promote state-wide plans, objectives, and programs that provide maximum health benefit at the state and local level (American Public Health Association, 2018). Furthermore, at the state level, the health departments have four basic criteria in their mission 1) health surveillance, planning, and program development, 2) promotion of local coverage, 3) setting and enforcement of standards, and 4) providing health services. They set regulations, guidelines, and laws to help ensure the protection of health in their designated area (American Public Health Association, 2018). All four of those criteria play a perfect role for the possible interventions the state of Imaginaria were devising for the current HIV/AID’s epidemic. Moreover, the board of health in a local or state health department develops plans and programs to maximize the health of the citizens. Local health departments are where people can go to get vaccinations, examined by a health professional, to learn general information on a particular disease or health behavior, and is where vital medical records of the city are kept. Nevertheless, it is also very helpful that local and state health departments’ work closely with federal health agencies, who later will become very influential for the interventions that are put into practice.
Undoubtedly, the local and state health departments of Imaginaria are going to be interested in devising an intervention that actually works. Their role in the intervention is crucial, as well. Health departments hold all medical records of the state and/or town, which can help with the research and develop current data for the interventions. They also have the ability to develop policies and work with other federal agencies to pass regulations that may be helpful for the intervention. The role the health department plays in the intervention process would be a key stakeholder. Furthermore, they have the ability to make a positive or negative effort within the interventions by having the ability to work closely with the participants (Community Tool Box, 2018). For one, the local health departments’ locations play a large role in working closely considering their where they are throughout the state of Imaginaria, as well as the state health department. With that being said, the accessibility for the citizens, infected or uninfected, is easy so there would be no complications with accessibility to a community health center for any reason.
One possibility for an intervention was one-on-one and group outreach sessions that would be held at the local community health center, which would be the local health department. For this case, the board of health can devise a team of volunteers, nurses, and doctors that have the capability to answer any questions the people infected with HIV/AIDs or people who need to learn how to protect themselves against HIV/AIDs may have. Furthermore, they also can offer support systems and counseling for the citizens already affected. Also, another intervention possibility for the already infected is giving medication to help them live longer since there is no cure. The local and state health departments can be one of many health centers that can prescribe and give the medicine to the patients. Last, detection and testing for HIV are crucial for Imaginaria’s current epidemic of HIV/AIDs. For one, early detection is helpful so the infected patients can know at an early stage and begin treatment as soon as possible and know not to infect anyone else. The health department’s role in this particular intervention is pivotal because they are the ones who first and foremost educate the general public on how HIV is transmitted, how to get tested, and what to do if infected. Moreover, the health departments also have the ability to screen and test for HIV among the population. The health departments can put aside certain days of the month for the public to come in and receive confidential testing for HIV.
Health departments also could play a critical role in education for the community on how HIV can be transmitted. In Imaginaria, 38.3% of people living with HIV became infected through drug use. The local health departments can offer educational classes to teach about the use of sterile needles and the negative outcomes regarding drug use itself. Other than that, 28.3% of people positive for HIV is from men having sex with other men- there can be a class on safe sex. The other 16.8% of people in Imaginaria living with HIV are not aware of how they could have contracted the diseases. With that being said, within the intervention possibilities, it needs to be addressed all of the ways people can become infected with HIV, even if not a prominent route. If that happens, more people can become cautious and be aware of the consequences that can arise from engaging risky behaviors.
The local and state health department’s time and energy will pay off to assist in the interventions for Imaginaria’s HIV/AID’s crisis. To elaborate, if the health departments can work collaboratively with policymakers, the general public, and the individuals who are suffering from the disease, the interventions should make an impact. To ensure the efficiency of the interventions, the health department can use surveillance systems, which help to evaluate the impact interventions had on the general population and the infected individuals. In this case, we would monitor the HIV/AID’s prevalence rate, if it increased/decreased since the interventions were implemented. As long as strong efforts are made by the primary, secondary, and key stakeholders throughout the entire intervention process the outcome should be positive. Although, it truly comes down to citizens of Imaginaria and their efforts to change their health behaviors and to gain more knowledge about HIV/AIDs to make them more aware of the epidemic as a whole.
Recommendations and conclusion
There are various challenges that would affect the engagement of different stakeholders. One of the challenges is inadequate resources. Inadequate resources such as identifying the necessary tools to each group of stakeholders. There is also a major challenge of transparency and accountability. When using different channels, such as emails and social media, one faces difficulties in maintaining an audit view of activity. Reaching out to some groups may also be costly and so one need to plan early the sources of funds. Towards starting this process, different strategies need to be applied. Some specific strategies to engage the general public in this intervention would be to send out flyers and rent out places and offer rewards for being at the seminars. By offering a stipend, this would encourage the general public to get involved in educational events that would educate on methods of prevention of HIV/AIDS. Some other specifics in order to keep the general population as a major stakeholder would be to find fundraiser opportunities and have a budget. Budget is most important in keeping the intervention afloat.
The media can also be an important tool in notifying the public on what events are going on near their area, or even keeping them in the loop. When doing a community-based intervention (general population), the services provided are going to support the most disadvantaged and stigmatized sections of the population. It would be important to provide services, care, and resources to those who are initially affected by the health disparity. An example of whom one would try to help in order to keep the stakeholder involved would be offering the above resources to sex workers, drug users, and gay men and the homeless.
In keeping the general population as a stakeholder in the community-based organization it is also important to make sure these 5 aspects are present. The organization needs to be organized (institutionalized from some degree), separate from the government (private organizations that are not run or overseen by a government agency), non-profit distributing, self-governing and finally, voluntary (participation is very important in the organization’s affairs) (Wilson, 2012).
conclusion
Prevention activities that have been directed through secondary HIV prevention are intended to prevent transmission to uninfected persons and creating more awareness to the affected persons. There the efforts of using the individuals that have been affected as stakeholders are important. Resources used in prevention with positives will educate the HIV positive patients on reducing the virus transmission to other persons. Community Engagement. will lower risk practices through substance and sexual behaviors. This will also support the ability of the patient in adhering to medication and suppression of the virus. Therefore, engaging individuals that are infected with HIV will facilitate success in the intervention process.
References
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