The Outbreak at Watersedge, a Public Health Discovery Game is an interactive platform in which health professionals gather data through a mapping system, the study of the affected population and investigation of laboratory work to determine an epidemic of diarrhea or any other condition of the same symptoms that happened on a group of people that visited the park. Once data is collected, the source of the infecting organism that produces the disease is identified. The modes of transmission, environmental exposures, and general factors that are associated with the susceptibility of the condition are also recognized. After recognizing these factors, healthcare providers use this information to take suitable measures to resolve the contaminated water issue.
The steps that are followed by public health professionals in this game include preparing for fieldwork, creating the outbreak existence, verifying the diagnosis, building a working case definition, finding the cases systematically, and further recording information. Additionally, performing descriptive epidemiology, evaluating hypotheses, comparing and reconciling with environmental and laboratory studies as well as maintaining surveillance is also conducted. One of the processes that are undertaken to identify the epidemic is disease mapping (Beale et al., 2014). Disease mapping is a systematic collection, assessment, understanding as well as distribution of data for public health utilization. Disease mapping process offers a means for public health professionals to evaluate the development of the disease to minimize health issues and deaths. Disease mapping is one of the techniques that were used at the Outbreak at Watersedge Park. The technique assisted healthcare workers to examine the collected data and further make decisions about the illness outbreak. This method is significant because it produces comprehensive details about the pattern of the outbreak, time of disease outbreak, geographical distribution as well as the risks to people.
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In this case, data can also be gathered through passive and active surveillance. The data is then organized properly to analyze any changes in health status. In the Watersedge Park Outbreak, disease mapping was an important tool because it determined the health problem geographical distribution, associated symptoms, depicted the source of the disease, detected changes of the disease, and detected facilitated planning for the disease elimination (Day-Black, 2015). Since disease mapping is directly associated with public health activities, it is an easy way of responding promptly to the outbreak that happened in the park.
Additionally, teamwork from the different health department is required to search for the infectious organism. This kind of collaboration is needed because it facilitates all-inclusive plan development to identify the infecting organism. The strategies that were utilized in this case to identify the organism determined the cause and pattern with similar cases to provide meaning to the gathered data. Information from different stakeholders was collected to create more connections during the investigation. After disease mapping and analysis, it was determined that the focus of infection was at the concession stand and near the beach. It was proven by the concession stand attendant that the fruit punch that was made utilized water from the fountain at the beach. Numerous people that felt sick had consumed water from the fruit punch. After testing water from the water fountain, it was confirmed that the water had cryptosporidium.
Cryptosporidium is an organism that causes diarrhea disease which has symptoms such as vomiting, fever, nausea, weight loss, dehydration, and fatigue. The symptoms of diarrhea are recognized between two to ten days in an individual after being exposed to the parasite. Cryptosporidium is not just identified by the typical intestinal disease but specific tests ought to be performed to test cryptosporidium presence. The broken filter permitted cryptosporidium to enter the drinking water. As opined by Callen et al. (2013), failure to change water pipes during park remodeling was the root cause of the problem. Apart from failing to change pipes, runoffs from cattle farms that were transported with the rains of the season are also sources of the parasite. The laboratory results also demonstrated that people that felt sick drank water from the fountain or fruit punch at the concession stand.
As much as the majority of people that drank water from the fountain felt sick, public health professionals did a remarkable job by detecting the issue at Watersedge Park in time and constantly monitored it to make sure that this event does not happen again in future. More so, disease mapping is an appropriate technique that can be utilized to monitor this particular issue, especially when information is not available (Garba & Gadanya, 2017). Besides, teamwork is also significant when dealing with a situation like this. In this case, public healthcare professionals worked together to address the upsurge in the number of people that had been affected by diarrhea. The main purpose of public healthcare professionals is to determine the cause of the issue and further monitoring laboratory data to determine if public interventions are effective in eradicating health outbreak incidents.
In summary, the Watersedge Outbreak game plays a significant role in public health because it exposes the fundamental principles of epidemiology in a simple language. Likewise, the game assists public healthcare professionals to monitor water as well as the sanitary aspect of the population. Further, the game sensitizes the vulnerable by establishing public awareness over and over. It also creates a vigilant body for surveillance that the authority uses to monitor other outbreak that may happen in the future. The Watersedge Outbreak game also enables individuals to know those who are affected and those at risk because it presents several people at risk ranging from children, women to old age individuals. This game should be used by healthcare professionals because it helps them in stopping outbreaks that may occur in the future.
References
Beale, L., Abellan, J. J., Hodgson, S., & Jarup, L. (2014). Methodologic issues and approaches to spatial epidemiology. Environmental health perspectives , 116 (8), 1105-1110.
Callen, B., Smith, C. M., Joyce, B., Lutz, J., Brown ‐ Schott, N., & Block, D. (2013). Teaching/learning strategies for the essentials of baccalaureate nursing education for entry ‐ level community/public health nursing. Public Health Nursing, 30(6), 537-547.
Day-Black, C. (2015). Gamification: An Innovative Teaching-Learning Strategy for the Digital Nursing Students in a Community Health Nursing Course. ABNF Journal, 26(4).
Garba, R. M., & Gadanya, M. A. (2017). The role of intervention mapping in designing disease prevention interventions: A systematic review of the literature. PLoS One, 12(3), e0174438.
