Implementation and Evaluation of Health Promotion Plan Proposal
One way nurses can help in communities such as Largo, Maryland is to partner with non-profits such as Heart to Hand to increase pubic awareness of HIV services within the community. Heart to Hand is located in Largo, so it is familiar with the services available for those living with HIV in the vicinity. Heart to Hand itself provides services for people who have HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases and they provide the services for free. Nurses can partner with Heart to Hand in their mission to provide support, education and resources to promote healthy lifestyles, decrease health disparities and increase access to healthcare by volunteering to lead HIV awareness presentations in middle and high schools.
Nurses can partner with Heart to Hand or other similar organizations by creating and presenting HIV educational programs in middle and high schools in the area. Adolescents can learn how to prevent the spread of HIV, who is most at-risk, and if they are living with HIV, they can learn how to do that in the best way possible. The White House Office of National AIDS Policy (2010) issued a report that explains, “There is a lack of knowledge related to HIV risk and transmission across broad segments of the American public” (White House Office of National AIDS Policy, 2010, p. 16). The report cites an AIDS advocate who says, “I hear from middle and high school students that having or living with STDs is just the way it is going to be….There is a lot of misconceptions in the media that is leading them to believe it is no big deal” (White House Office of National AIDS Policy, 2010, pp. 16-17). Because people have not been educated about HIV/AIDS, there is many misconceptions about how HIV is acquired and that is causing new infections. If young people are taught how to prevent becoming infected, this will help to stop the AIDS epidemic in the future.
Nurse-led presentations in health or physical education classes or other venues in schools can provide information that will help to prevent the acquisition of HIV and halt the spread of the virus to others. Nurses can teach about condom use, getting tested, and access to free or low-cost resources for prevention and testing. They can provide the latest research and progress on the disease. They can update young people on the latest developments in HIV/AIDS research and inform them of the new antiretroviral drugs (ARDs) that can make living with HIV successful, so even those young people who have HIV can have some hope for their future.
Timeline for Implementation
With the numerous sources providing information about HIV and ways to prevent and control it, amassing material for a presentation would not be difficult. Heart to Hand may already have materials used for the type of educational presentations that nurses could bring to schools. While teachers may teach about HIV/AIDS, adolescents may view nurses as having more credibility on the issue and take what they say more seriously since the students attending the presentations would not be tested or graded. Making the presentation interesting and memorable to the students would be the trickiest part. However, the timeline for putting such a presentation together should not be more than 3 months.
The next step would be to reach out to middle and high schools in the Largo, Maryland area and schedule times for the presentation to be given. Volunteering to do one presentation per week should not cut into a nurse’s free time too much. Presenting the educational material might be a fun and interesting adventure where nurses have the opportunity to interact with a whole auditorium full of adolescents. The HIV educational presentation program should begin at the beginning of the next school year, which is roughly a year from now. It should be tested throughout the school year and the data amassed from the testing should be evaluated over the summer months to see if it should continue for the next school year.
Resources for Implementation
Many resources exist that provide materials and advice about how to best present information on who is most at risk for HIV acquisition, HIV prevention and testing to adolescents. For instance, Quackenbush (2016) of BioMed Central lists several suggestions including using evidence-based information, which nurses can deliver making the information that much more relevant to middle and high school students (Quackenbush, 2016). Quackenbush (2016) also recommends “Us[ing] comprehensive school health approaches across multiple areas of risk and take steps to address social determinants of health” and also using real resources such as people living with HIV who are willing to share their experiences (Quackenbush, 2016). Nurses can ask patients with HIV if they would be willing to speak to adolescents, which is a good way to encourage community involvement.
Other resources necessary to deliver the presentations include enough nurse volunteers, permission, time and venue from schools, some funding for materials and perhaps transportation. The nurse volunteers would probably not be difficult to recruit because it is a meaningful way to give back to the community. Speaking to young people is an interesting and engaging experience for nurses too. Finding time in busy school curriculums may be an issue, but most schools budget time for educational presentations and teachers can be made aware of the program so that they can fit it into their teaching plans too. Funding resources already exist through donations to Heart to Hand and other HIV/AIDS non-profits and governmental organizations that provide grants and other types of funding for these sorts of projects. The funding amount would be small because all it would have to cover is materials and perhaps reimburse mileage for traveling around the Prince George’s County area to deliver the presentation.
Delivery
One area that the presentation should focus on is high risk groups. Gupta, Anjum, Bhardwaj, Srivastav, and Zaidi (2013) of the North American Journal of Medical Sciences studied the knowledge that students had regarding HIV. They found that most students understand how the disease is spread, but the knowledge of who is most at risk was not well understood. “Knowledge of students about high-risk groups and curability (39%) of HIV/AIDS was not satisfactory. Therefore, the school authorities and the others concerned should come forward to design awareness campaigns for the benefit of the students so as to help them develop proper understanding of HIV/AIDS, its spread, and prevention” (Gupta, Anjum, Bhardwaj, Srivastav, & Zaidi, 2013). This lack of knowledge may explain why young people are one of the highest at-risk groups for acquiring HIV.
The presentation should not last longer than 30 minutes because young people have short attention spans, and in the current culture of technological advancement, they grow bored easily. Using the correct language is also important. Because the most at-risk group among adolescents are gay males, Quackenbush (2016) says, “To reduce HIV risk, it’s imperative that school programs use inclusive language, activities and content to engage LGBTQ students” (Quackenbush, 2016). The HIV Alliance (2017) also suggests a condom demonstration. “Using a wooden dowel . . . presenters present the steps on how to put on a condom properly, while outlining how to know if your condom is safe and effective before using it, types of condoms, types of lubricant, and proper condom storage and preservation” (HIV Alliance, 2017). Other resources for ideas on how to present to middle and high school students can come from Heart to Hand, who have a long list of resources at their website (Heart to Hand, 2019). Most schools will already have the equipment needed to make a presentation such as a device that projects a PowerPoint presentation onto a movie screen. The props that may be needed are also readily available at most healthcare facilities, so nurse volunteers could access supplies through their place of employment either as loans or as donations.
Data description
The success of the type of program described above can be measured indirectly. For example, Heart to Hand can maintain statistics beginning on January 1, 2020 about how many middle and high school students are infected with HIV. They can also access statistics about new infections. The Institute for Public Health in Maryland (IPHI) and Heart to Hand already have an alliance, so the IPHI could be a source for data that can measure the success of a school education program. The Maryland Department of Health would also have statistical information about how many new cases of HIV were reported during 2020. This information could be compared with that taken during 2021. If the numbers of new cases among adolescents declined, it might be an indication of the success of the program.
Resources for Evaluation
Since most health departments track new HIV cases anyway and often include in the report the demographics of the newest cases, accessing these reports would be how the program would be evaluated. In addition, Heart to Hand and other similar organizations track the number of people who come to them for testing. This statistic would also be important in determining if the program was relevant. A computer and a Wi-Fi connection are all that is necessary to access these reports. These items are most likely available at most workplaces that include nurses on their staff if they are not present in the nurse’s home.
Community Partners Needed for Evaluation
Tracking new cases of infectious disease is a big part of what health departments do. They report the statistics on new HIV cases based on accumulated data from healthcare organizations and individuals in their jurisdiction. That means that the health departments, health organizations and community individuals are all partners in producing information about HIV and other health conditions. These are the types of community partners that will be needed to successfully evaluate the HIV education program for middle and high schools.
Summary/Conclusion
Partnering with Heart to Hand to develop an educational plan to present at middle and high schools throughout Prince George’s County can help to provide information for adolescents, who are among one of the most at-risk groups for contracting HIV. Other organizations including school districts, professional nursing organizations, other non-profits, various health departments and healthcare focused organizations, and the healthcare organization for which a nurse works can also be tapped for assistance in establishing such a program for adolescents. Many online resources are also available to provide suggestions and information about how to go about delivering the presentation in a way that is meaningful to middle and high school students. Health departments will generate reports on new cases of HIV among various demographic groups including young people that can help to evaluate the success of the program. They can also help to facilitate such a program in schools. Heart to Hand can release data on how many students have come to them and similar agencies to be tested for HIV. Allowing the program to be tested for the length of a school year is a reasonable amount of time to see if the program can be successful in helping to reduce the number of new HIV cases among adolescents. It is reasonable to assume that data can be evaluated over the summer months to determine If the program is successful and should be continued. The expectation is that there will be a reduced number of new HIV cases and more students will get tested.
References
Gupta, P., Anjum, F., Bhardwaj, P., Srivastav, J., & Zaidi, Z. H. (2013). Knowledge About HIV/AIDS Among Secondary School Students. North American Journal of Medical Sciences, 5(2), 119-123. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
Heart to Hand. (2019). Resources. Retrieved from Heart to Hand: https://www.hearttohandinc.org...
HIV Alliance. (2017). Education Programs. Retrieved from HIV Alliance: https://hivalliance.org/educat...
Quackenbush, M. (2016, March 29). Five ways to help improve school HIV prevention programs. Retrieved from BioMed Central: https://blogs.biomedcentral.co...
White House Office of National AIDS Policy. (2010). Community Ideas for Improving the Response to the Domestic HIV Epidemic. Washington D.C.: White House.gov. Retrieved from https://files.hiv.gov/s3fs-pub...
