Question

Jay is a public health worker and is charged with developing an immunization tracking program for residents of his county aged birth to 21 years. Jay is primarily interested in measles vaccination rates. There has been a major increase in measles diag- noses in young children and adolescents from the years 2010 to 2015 (10 cases in the county in 2010 up to 20 cases in 2015). The current chance of county residents being diagnosed with measles before the age of 21 is 1 in 200,000. Jay is interested in understanding why this increase occurred over such a short period of time.

Explain how evidence-based practice would have a role in Jay’s work.

Answer 1

Measles is a highly contagious virus that lives in the nose and throat mucus of an infected person. It can spread to others through coughing and sneezing. Also, measles virus can live for up to two hours in an airspace where the infected person coughed or sneezed.

Some of the reasons or conditions which may have triggered the infectious rate of Measles over a short period of time would be:

1) The majority of cases would be among people who were not vaccinated against measles. Measles is more likely to spread and cause outbreaks in county communities where groups of people are unvaccinated.
All measles cases were caused by measles wild-type D8 or B3.

2)Number of Travellers from abroad with Measles would spread the disease in the community, as the infected person can easily spread the disease to large number of persons in a community.

3) Measles is so contagious that if one person has it, up to 90% of the people close to that person who are not immune will also become infected.Infected people can spread measles to others from four days before and four days after the rash appears.

Evidence based practice:(EBP)

Some of the key components of EBP are

1)Clinician's Knowledge and Skills:
The physical therapist and physical therapist assistant's knowledge and skills are a key part of the evidence based process. This personal scope of practice consists of activities undertaken by an individual physical therapist that are situated within a physical therapist's unique body of knowledge where the individual is educated, trained, and competent to perform that activity. Using clinical decision-making and judgment is key.

Patient's Wants and Needs
The patient's wants and needs are a key part of the evidence based process.Incorporating a patient's cultural considerations, needs, and values is a necessary skill to provide best practice services.

Implementing Evidence-Based Practice
Explore courses, recommended readings, and multimedia presentations which will help in understanding and narrow the gap between the best available evidence and current practice.

By doing all the above evidence based practices, it would be easier for developing an immunization tracking program for the county residents for eradication of Measles.