1. Evaluate three possible epidemiological approaches you might utilize to manage the (Chlamydia) outbreak in Jefferson County Health Department Alabama. Be sure to compare and contrast your chosen approaches.

Chlamydia infections are a very common STD among young adults and sexually active adolescents within the United States. As of 2022, nearly 4 million infections of chlamydial occur each year. Even more alarming, infected individuals can go months and in rare instances, years without experiencing any symptoms. This is a large reason for the dramatic increases in infected populations around the developed nations of the world. Here, those who are asymptomatic but have the potential to infect others can have dramatic consequences for society overall. In addition the prevalence of chlamydia has been very high for those in inner cities. These individuals tend to have a very low socioeconomic status, have low education levels, lower wealth, and higher poverty rates (Ahmadi, 2018).

The first epidemiological approach leverages community-based strategies designed to mitigate the spread of the disease within highly susceptible areas. As noted within the introduction chlamydia is heavily concentrated within adolescents and young adults. In addition, many of these individuals are engaging in unprotected sexual activity which easily spread the disease from one party to the next. As these individuals are not getting testing regularly, those who are asymptomatic often show no signs of having the disease can still spread it through sexual contact. The severe lack of use related to contraceptives and with testing heavily contributes to the spread of the virus and its subsequent impact on society.

As a result the first strategy is improve overall public awareness of Chlamydia. Here the strategy will look to help deter unprotected sexual activity by first making standards aware of the consequences of unprotected sexual contact on themselves and their overall communities. This is very similar to the Click it or Ticket initiatives surrounding drunk driving. Here the idea is to first establish or occupy a niche in the consumers mind regarding unprotected sex and associate it with a behavior such as abstinence or the use of condoms. Through this method, the strategy will look to address both the conscious and subconscious mind of the consumer through properly targeted advertisements, reminders, and announcements. If done properly, these initiatives will help to lower the incidences of unprotected sex, lower the spread of Chlamydia, and ultimately help benefit the community at large (US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2018).

Schools will be heavily utilized during this approach as they not only provide a captive audience, the target mark this education campaign are school aged children. As a result Chlamydia specific information will be included in school health and sexual education courses. Likewise, school programs will be modified to help assist student of Jefferson County in developing the social and behavioral skills needed to avoid chlamydial infection, HIV, and other STDs. This is particularly important as many sexual education courses teach Jefferson County students about the more deadly and serious sexual transmitted diseases. These diseases include HIV, AID, Herpes, and other STDs that can either cause death or can remain with you throughout life. Often overlooked are the smaller STDs such as Chlamydia which can be cured through treatment or pose less of a risk compared to their deadlier counterparts. As a result of this, the perception around Chlamydia are much laxer as compared to their much more dangerous alternatives. This presents an often-conflicting dynamic as adolescents and young adults do not do enough to protect themselves from Chlamydia seeing it a much more easily solved problem. The education. The education program is therefore designed to offer more classroom instruction, access to confidential testing and screening, more information related to infection...…of the healthcare opportunities offered by the state at a much lower cost. This will also have the secondary benefit of improving healthcare outcomes throughout the country as a higher percentage of the population is leveraging the overall system.

This approach is arguable the most expensive of all the other options and its outcomes are not guaranteed. In addition, much like other countys throughout the United States, this solution may not be feasible considering the high budget costs imposed on countys throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally this solution is not very amenable to political discourse as it could potentially require higher taxes on Jefferson country residents.

2. Recommend at least six steps in a plan that may be presented to an audience of interest to prevent the proliferation of this particular disease. Be sure to include support for recommendations.

a. Engage in a communication imitative throughout Jefferson Country specifically targeted to at risk adolescents and young adults. Research has shown that effective communication can help prevent unwarranted behavior. Repeating communication and messaging are essential for consumers to remember the behavior and act appropriately on it.

b. Improve school sexual education classes and clinics to provide education and testing services within school facilities. School education facilities direct impact the target market who is most susceptible to chlamydia. As a result

c. Improve healthcare facility screening, and testing throughout Jefferson country to help identify those infected. Once identified, offer coprehensive treatment services to help stop the spread of the disease. Here, treatment will be needed to help isolate and ultimately mitigate the spread of the disease

d. Improve healthcare cooperation to help share data and resources to help prevent the spread of chlamydia. Healthcare cooperation will be required to help share resources, treatments and other preventative measures designed to stop the spread of chlamydia.

e. Offer free preventative tools such as condoms to those in at-risk communities. Resources such as condoms can be use…