E-Health

54-DOB-4-1

As a health and social care worker in a local health department who is notified that a resident has just arrived from Ebola infected country in Western Africa. The initial concern is the possibility of Ebola disease outbreak as well as the health and the safety of the local community. Ebola being an infectious and communicable disease, I will ensure that the resident is quarantine and isolated for a while as well as ensure that I make this information known to the healthcare organisation. The resident who might have had possible contact with the Ebola virus need to be monitored for symptoms of Ebola each day for 21 days after the last possible contact with Ebola virus (Rothman, 2015). However, the resident depending on the type of possible contact to Ebola virus, may also need to be quarantined to minimize the risk of spread of Ebola if they develop symptoms. Visiting the residents’ home while they are quarantined, is discouraged.

One of the major health theory or model that could be used to address this issue is the system dynamics (SD) approach, theory or model is used to study the impact of social and behavioral factors on the spread of diseases such as Ebola, and also to identify how people’s perceptions about the situation can have different effects on controlling the outbreak. System dynamics approach focuses on understanding the relationship between the structure of a system and the resulting dynamic behaviors generated through multiple interacting feedback loops (Sterman, 2010). This approach is especially useful in explaining why systems, in general, are resistant to policy implementation and planned change, and produce mathematical models that allow policy makers to understand the potential effects of alternative strategies and use the information to make better decisions regarding policy and program directions. In order to develop the system dynamics model, we identify the main causal forces that lead to the epidemic and illustrate within the Causal Loop Diagram (CLD). The CLD demonstrates the major feedback loops that we hypothesize are responsible for the growth and decline of the number of infected and death from Ebola. However, a CLD is not a simulation model. Any system dynamics simulation model can be expressed as a system of differential equations.

References

Donaldson L, Donaldson R. Essential Public Health (2nd ed.) Petroc Press, 2013.

Rothman KJ, Modern Epidemiology, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, (2015).