D025 Phase 1 Reflection Summary
I have a background in health promotion and community health and was familiar
with looking at social determinants of health and creating strategies for positive
health outcomes; however, looking at my community was an interesting experience.
I have lived in Orange County, Florida, for about 10 years but didn’t know how
various health factors compared to my state or the United States. It felt good to see
that we were doing fairly well compared to my state and the country, but one factor
stood out. That was sexually transmitted diseases. I honestly didn’t want to
explore and create an intervention for this topic, as it didn’t interest me in the past.
I would have instead looked into nutrition or physical activity. But, then I realized
Chlamydia was one of the most common STDs in that group. Women’s health is my
passion, and I knew that it was mostly a factor among young women, so I dove right
in. I decided to focus on Chlamydia for my research and Advocacy plan. The sites
recommended within the assignments were very helpful, especially the Roadmap
Rankings site. I also didn’t realize the CDC had information about my state, and I
was able to start thinking about what interventions might be able to reduce the rate
of Chlamydia from some of the strategies they discussed.
Access to screenings and education are the biggest social determinants relating to
this problem, and the greatest population at risk are sexually active women ages 15
to 24. Males can also spread the disease, though symptoms often go unnoticed. I
planned to do something within the high schools in Orange County, Florida based on
this information. There are about 60 high schools in my area. I found that they are
all required to take at least one physical education credit and decided to focus on
an education campaign to be presented during their PE class. During that class,
they could also be encouraged to go to the school clinic for screening and free
condoms.
Awareness of the issue is crucial, as often young people are not even aware they
have the disease since there are often no symptoms or delayed symptoms.
Creating awareness about Chlamydia would hopefully be an effective way to direct
young people to screening and the use of condoms to prevent Chlamydia. Creating
SMART goals and researching policyholders in my county was a great next step for
creating my Action Plan. The SMART goals would keep me focused on my objective.
Knowing the policyholders who will be part of the implementation of the plan as I
communicate with them.
