Health Policy for Advanced Practice Nursing - Essay Example

Infectious diseases have been a thorn in the flesh of humans throughout history. It has been considered to have had its hand in shaping history, for example, the flu pandemic of 1918 that was the cause of over five hundred thousand deaths in the United States and over fifty million worldwide. Infectious disease has been considered to be among the top leading causes of death in the world by the World Health Organization. Recently within my community, there have been concerns about the rise of a flu epidemic.

Being a nurse, it was within my role to have a hand in preventing the spread of the flu epidemic.The spread of the flu is a respiratory infection and is quickly spread. When an infected person sneezes or coughs the pathogens, tend to get into the air, and anyone who breaths in the pathogen gets infected. I played the role of an infection control nurse, and the main aim was to prevent the spread of the flu by preventing the infectious agents related to the flu. This can be achieved through the implementation of Infection prevention and control (IP&C) practices which aim at reducing the risk of a potential spread of the flu.

To address the concerns within the community, it was essential to have a health promotion project that will educate the community on how the flu is spread, and prevention techniques (American Psychological Association., 2010). Additionally, within the hospital setting, it is crucial to containing the infection by isolating infected individuals to eliminate further spread.It is essential to keep in mind the global considerations of infectious diseases. Globalization is considered to play a part in the heightened rates of the spread of infectious disease through the transmission of cultures and behaviors globally thus the flu epidemic can easily and spread fast if not contained.

This can be done through vaccination and isolation ("Policy Statement on Infectious Disease | State Public Health | ASTHO," 2018). Also, various policy issues need to be considered which include; surveillance and reporting that involves developing a case and reporting disease data from states and territories to CDC.