Portsmouth, Virginia, is a city located on the East Coast of the United States. It is a port town with an unusual racial makeup, as roughly half of the population is African American, with a further approximately 40% white and the rest composed of various other minorities. The author has found Hispanics to have a particularly high incidence of tuberculosis. This result is consistent with statistics in broader Virginia, where they are ten times as likely to contract it as while people, second only to Asians and Pacific Islanders (OTIS TB data, 2020). The community is small and generally impoverished, which is why it was chosen as the primary target for the author’s praxis.
As a BSN-prepared community health nurse, Debbie needs to implement measures that reduce the danger of a tuberculosis outbreak in the community. The primary prevention measure that the author would recommend would be to promote BCG vaccination in children across the area. Infants are particularly at risk from tuberculosis, and vaccination can help reduce the danger that they face. The secondary prevention would involve testing the farmworkers using the tuberculin skin test to determine whether there is a present danger of the infection spreading and treat those already affected. Finally, for tertiary prevention, Hasnain et al. (2019) recommend promoting lower tobacco consumption among the affected communities. All of these methods are relatively inexpensive and can help control the spread of tuberculosis, assuming that active infections emerge.
In the case of the author’s community, the interventions should remain mostly the same, but there is a notable concern that needs to be addressed. Per Zuniga et al. (2014), there is a tendency among Mexican Americans to stigmatize community members who are known to be ill with tuberculosis even as they need family support. As such, it will be necessary to provide a higher degree of privacy and confidentiality to the patients to ensure that they are comfortable disclosing their symptoms. This measure will reduce their tendency to conceal their condition and help with the early prevention of the illness before it can develop. Combined with the other steps, this approach can improve the monitoring of tuberculosis and prevent outbreaks.
References
Hasnain, S. E., Ehtesham, N. Z., & Grover, S. (eds.). (2019). Mycobacterium tuberculosis: Molecular infection biology, pathogenesis, diagnostics and new interventions. Springer Singapore.
OTIS TB data 1993-2019 results. (2020). Centers for Disease Control and Protection. Web.
Zuniga, J. A., Munoz, S. E., Johnson, M. Z., & Garcia, A. (2014). Tuberculosis treatment for Mexican Americans living on the U.S.–Mexico border. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 46(4), 253-262.