Article Review
Research has indicated that black women have the biggest burden of stroke in relation to women from any other racial group in the US (Beal, 2014). Nevertheless, awareness of stroke among African American women is still significantly low.
The paper criticizes an article by Beal (2014), which is based on a study aimed at exploring the perception of African American women pertain stroke and evaluate their health searching tendencies other than in medical encounters.
Research Questions
Beal (2014) sought to establish the awareness among African American women concerning stroke and how they access pertinent information. As such, the author set two research questions, including “what are the perceptions of African American women about the cause, seriousness, and consequences of stroke?” and “How do African American women acquire health information outside of medical encounters?” (p. 25).
Research Design
The author adopted an exploratory-descriptive qualitative design, which is recommended for studying views of participants on certain issues and their interventions. The design entails seeking to evaluate issues that have not been defined comprehensively and clearly and, therefore, suggest pertinent interventions (Beal, 2014).
Sample Collection
The sample was collected from black churches in two urban centers, and it comprised 48 respondents. The lower age limit for the participants was set at 38 years, and the average age was 68.6 years. A considerable more than 50% of the sample had a college or graduate degree. Slightly more than 20% of the women had prior stroke treatment. The sample could be considered inadequate due to its homogeneity and difficulty in the generalizability of findings and implications.
Data Collection Method
Beal (2014) and a black investigative assistant collected the data from the participants in four churches. The participants were divided into groups of 6-10 women. Open-ended question interviews were administered to the respondents, and the feedback recorded using a digital audio recorder.
Study Limitations
The sample used in the study was homogenous and represented church-going urban women only. It is recommended that future studies include women from rural areas and other demographics. Second, although economic status may play a role information exposure, the study overlooked information on participants’ economic wellbeing. This could be addressed by adding economic status in future related studies.
Findings
The result revealed the lack of sufficient knowledge pertaining stroke among the participants. The lack of sufficient knowledge was attributed to limited exposure to credible and trustworthy sources of information on the cause, symptoms, seriousness, and consequences of stroke.
The responses were grouped into four categories, which were given titles that included “We Are None in the Know about Stroke, If You’re Black, You’re at Risk for Stroke, Most of our Concern Would be Cancer and You Can’t Get Too Much Information” (p. 26).
The first and the fourth titles suggested that the participants have limited exposure to information and, therefore, they were not sufficiently knowledgeable. They had minimal knowledge concerning the stroke since majority depended on information from suffering friends and relatives. Very few, one out of the 48, had spent considerable time with a physician. Title 3 implied that information on cancer was more readily available to the participants compared with information of stroke and, therefore, physiology and symptoms of cancer were clearer to them than stroke.
Title 2 revealed that although the participants had limited information concerning causes, symptoms, occurrence, and development of stroke, they had the perception that African Americans are at greater risks of suffering from stroke than any other racial group in the US. Moreover, the participant knew that hypertension resulting from life stress could be linked to the increased risks. Nevertheless, the mechanism of development of hypertension-related stroke was unclear among the participant.
From the above findings, it is evident that the collected and analyzed data comprehensively answered the two research questions.
Summary
Beal (2014) was driven by the need to understand the perception of black women on stroke and their sources of information on the diseases other than physicians since research show that the Africa American women are relatively less informed even though they are at highest risks compared with women from other races in America. Using 48 participants, the author found out that the participants had insufficient knowledge pertaining stroke since they were not exposed to adequate information. Very few had clinical encounters while a majority heard about the disease from an affected friend or a relative. Although there are national campaigns on stroke, they are not as effective as they should be in informing black women on the disease. Moreover, a significant number of the respondents relied on television programs.
Implications for Practice
The findings from study imply that there is a dire need to come up with a more effective communication approach, which is tailored to black women. It is suggested that culturally relevant community-based programs, where physicians and black women interact in groups, are adopted. The findings and the practice implication could be reinforced by studies with bigger samples and with demographics that are more diverse.
Conclusion
Although black women face the greatest risk of stroke, they have insufficient information on the diseases because of lack of adequate exposure. This situation increases the risks of complications and death. Therefore, it is recommended that pertinent community-based approaches to communication be adopted since they are considered more effective in informing black women on stroke.
References
Beal, C. C. (2014). Stroke education needs of African American women. Public Health Nursing, 32(1), 24-33.
Revenge As A Form Of Ensuring Justice
Introduction
In general, revenge is an action that involves harming someone in return for being harmed by them. Usually, all people can feel this urge to punish somebody for the actions they did. Psychologists consider that revenge is a form of providing justice. The threat of revenge can keep people protected from those who are willing to harm (Chester and DeWall 414). In this respect, revenge can assure people that those who inflicted moral or physical damage on them will not do that again in the future. However, sometimes, revenge can have unpleasant consequences. For example, when a loving couple breaks each other’s things when they quarrel; when businesspeople destroy their careers trying to avenge those who rejected them; when students start a fire in a school building, and so on (Hall). Thus, revenge is considered one of the deepest human instincts; therefore, it is impossible to get rid of it, but it is possible to control it.
The Concept of Revenge
The concept of revenge was first described a very long time ago. Bible, for example, justifies revenge claiming that an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is acceptable. However, nowadays, there is an enormous number of books and movies that depict stories about revenge. Almost all of them have one common opinion regarding revenge. They demonstrate that it is bad and emphasize that it always has pernicious consequences (Grobbink et al. 897). The characters in these stories always suffer, as at first, when they want to avenge somebody or something, they usually feel pain and anger, but when their revenge is over, the feelings do not change.
Thus, in modern society, using different forms of art, people try to show that revenge is mostly bad. They also show that it is imperative to try avoiding it and learn to forgive their offenders. However, according to the statistics, this does not bring any positive results. The main reason for this is certainly that this urge for revenge is one of the human instincts, which is difficult to control. Another crucial reason is that as long as there are offenders, the feeling of injustice will always prevail in people’s minds, and they will succumb to revenge.
Certainly, it seems logical that if one person did something bad to another person, he or she will feel injustice and try to establish it using revenge. On the other hand, violence begets violence, and the offender can also avenge somebody in return, and so on (Bone and Raihani 325). Therefore, to stop this process, people try to convince those who want revenge not to initiate this process at all.
Conclusion
Thus, it is impossible to get rid of revenge, as, according to various studies, even animals are inclined to this feeling. The reason for this is probably because the concept of revenge is closely connected to the concept of justice, which is responsible for the feeling of what is right and what is wrong. Therefore, since the feeling of revenge is inevitable, it is necessary to manage it. Indeed, the key to solving the problem of revenge is not to try to eliminate it but to control it. Revenge is not always negative and, in certain cases, it can bring positive results (Hall). It can occur only in those cases when revenge is used as a punishment that shows people that they did wrong and must not repeat that.
Works Cited
Bone, Jonathan E., and Nichola J. Raihani. “Human Punishment is Motivated by Both a Desire for Revenge and a Desire for Equality.” Evolution and Human Behavior, vol. 36, no. 4, 2015, pp. 323-330.
Chester, David S., and C. Nathan DeWall. “Combating the Sting of Rejection with the Pleasure of Revenge: A New Look at How Emotion Shapes Aggression.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 112, no. 3, 2017, pp. 413-426.
Grobbink, Leonie H., et al. “Revenge: An analysis of its psychological underpinnings.” International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, vol. 59, no. 8, 2015, pp. 892-907.
Hall, Karyn. “Revenge: Will You Feel Better?” Psychology Today. 2013, Web.
Influenza, Tuberculosis, AIDS Prevention In Miami
Epidemiological and Surveillance Data
Three population-based communicable illnesses have been chosen for analysis: influenza, tuberculosis, and AIDS. To obtain relevant and reliable epidemiological and surveillance data for Miami, Florida (zip code 33018), online resources were used; the Florida Department of Health publishes monthly reports concerning infectious disease services and disease control. According to the latest report (“Epi Monthly Report,” 2017), the Florida Department of Health is currently in need of influenza sentinel providers, i.e. health care providers who conduct surveillance for influenza-like illnesses and report the results to the Department so that, in combination with other surveillance data, the relevant authorities have a comprehensive picture of influenza incidence in every county and the country in general.
The report encourages more practitioners to become influenza sentinel providers and stresses that it normally takes less than 30 minutes a week to compose and send a report to the Department of Health concerning influenza-like illnesses surveillance. The report states that there were no novel strains of influenza in 2017 (or in two previous years) but also documents one case of pediatric death from influenza in 2017, while there were none in 2016 or 2015. Overall, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), according to its most recent report (“Weekly US map,” 2017) classifies the influenza activity in Florida as “sporadic,” which is the second-lowest level of concern after “no activity.”
Concerning tuberculosis, nine cases were documented in May of this year, and overall, 24 cases have been reported in 2017. This is less than the number of reported cases for the same period of the previous year and the year before; the tuberculosis incidence rate in Miami-Dade County has been decreasing within the last three years. Concerning AIDS, 37 cases were reported in May 2017, and 152 cases were reported in 2017 overall. This is less than the number of reported AIDS diagnoses during the same period of the previous year; the largest number of cases were reported in 2016 and amounted to 209, and the smallest number of cases in the three years occurred in 2015.
Concerning the prevention and containment of influenza, the Department of Health is taking such measures as enrolling sentinel providers, and ten such providers are currently enrolled in Miami-Dade. Also, there is the syndromic surveillance system in place on the emergency-department basis. The community-level importance of monitoring influenza trends is justified by the fact that 15 to 40 percent of the population in the United States is affected by influenza every year, and it is estimated that approximately 36,000 people in the country die from the disease annually (“Immunization and infectious diseases,” n.d.). Concerning AIDS (“Fact sheet 2012,” 2012), the monitoring conducted by the Department of Health includes composing reports for different demographic groups based on such criteria as sex, race, and age.
Community Effects
Communicable diseases are especially suitable for being regarded from the community perspective because their effects extend most demonstrably from the individual level to the community level. A particularly relevant topic identified by the Healthy People 2020 initiative is immunization and infectious diseases, and the goal is to “[i]ncrease immunization rates and reduce preventable infectious diseases” (“Immunization and infectious diseases,” n.d., para. 1). Preventability is the key concept in this regard; it is recognized that large spending is required to address the effects of epidemics, which is why the efforts of the health care system should be aimed at preventing the spread of communicable diseases. Two directions are proposed by the Healthy People 2020 initiative: clinical and community-based. Both include the elements of education and the delivery of evidence to populations to promote healthy practices and engagement in effective self-care.
Influenza, along with pneumonia, is classified as an acute respiratory infection, which remains the eighth leading cause of death in the country. Due to the pattern of its transmission, the disease is responsible for affecting entire communities. One of the objectives set by the Healthy People 2020 initiative is to increase the percentage of people who are vaccinated every year against seasonal influenza, and many aspects of this objective are now considered achieved. Concerning tuberculosis, the objective of the initiative was to reduce the incidence rate to one new case per 100,000 people, and it is not currently achieved. What is recognized as particularly important in reducing the incidence rate is achieving a higher number of people diagnosed with tuberculosis who are eligible for curative therapy.
Concerning AIDS, its community threats have been identified in many studies, and several cases of AIDS crises, i.e. situations in which the incidence rates were remarkably higher than the capacity of the health system in a given region, are known. The Healthy People 2020 initiative currently has a separate set of objectives dedicated to HIV and AIDS, and several objectives are regarded as achieved today (“HIV,” n.d.). These include the reduction of new AIDS cases among adolescents and adults to 12.4 per 100,000 people and the reduction of perinatally acquired AIDS to 31 new cases.
Plan of Action
Concerning infectious decisions, the main plan of action proposed by the Healthy People 2020 initiative is promoting vaccination programs. These programs should particularly include home visits, requirements for school attendance, immunization schedules, family incentives, provider assessment, and immunization information distribution (“Immunization and infectious diseases,” n.d.). Concerning influenza vaccinations, in particular, the proposed actions include interventions with on-site, free, and actively promoted immunization sessions. Concerning tuberculosis, special attention is paid to its drug-resistant forms, and it is proposed that efforts should be applied to making diagnosis and treatment more accessible to the public. However, for AIDS, vaccination cannot be part of the measures aimed at reducing community risks; the actions proposed by the Healthy People 2020 initiative (“HIV,” n.d.) include such interventions as screening, risk reduction (e.g. interventions aimed at changing behaviors related to lifestyles and sexual activity), and promotion of protective behaviors.
Two particular areas that should be addressed as part of the plan of action are communication and infrastructure. The population of Miami should be more extensively informed on how communicable diseases are transmitted, what measures should be taken to reduce the risk of becoming infected, and what to do in case a disease is contracted. Information campaigns should be evidence-based and should not be limited to clinical settings but reach the general population through various media, including the Internet and social networking services. Concerning infrastructure, the providers of health care services should consider that a rapid spread of disease may impose additional burdens on the facilities, and it should be ensured that the system is prepared for such a scenario. Also, preventive measures should be incorporated into the health care system, too, including the work of the community preventive services task force.
References
Epi Monthly Report. (2017).
Fact sheet 2012. (2012).
HIV. (n.d.).
Immunization and infectious diseases. (n.d.).