Week 5 Assignment: Infectious Disease Case Study

Review the case study presented this week.

Write a 2- to 3-page paper (excluding the title and reference page) answering the following questions:

• What components of a strong public health infrastructure should have been in place to contain this disease?
• Describe the lessons learned. What updates should be made to the emergency preparedness plan?
• Apply system thinking tools to analyze how to prevent future outbreaks and/or improve future outcomes.
• Answer questions 2, 3, 7, 8, and 9 from the end of the case study.

Study Questions

1. Who should oversee this assessment and who would be participating or cooperating as a team?
2. What components of a strong public health infrastructure should would be in place to contain this disease?
3. What leadership characteristics would have been displayed in this scenario?
4. What kind of economic impact did this incident pose on animal importation and the exotic pets industry?
5. In the Smalltown, Indiana incident, the disease transmission was from animal-to-animal and animal-to-human. What if the disease affected the wild prairie dog species of the American West and Southwest? If the incident had occurred in New York City, how would this have impacted the human and rodent populations?
6. How important is it to involve our local veterinarians in our preparedness plans since animals play a key role in many families and can be carriers of certain diseases?
7. How important is the role of the media in public health infrastructure?
8. What conclusions can be made about expediency and documentation of assessment and its influence upon implementing or developing the necessary policies to prevent further contamination of people and the animal population?
9. How about the influence of assessment on policy development?