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- All Subjects: Influenza
- All Subjects: Infectious Diseases
- Creators: Arizona State University. AZ Infectious Disease Epi (AIDE) Lab
- Creators: Castillo-Chavez, Carlos
- Creators: Legutki, Bart
This thesis looks first at the impact that limited access to vaccine stockpiles may have on a single influenza outbreak. The purpose is to highlight the challenges faced by populations embedded in inadequate health systems and to identify and assess ways of ameliorating the impact of resource limitations on public health policy.
Age-specific per capita constraint rates play an important role on the dynamics of communicable diseases and, influenza is, of course, no exception. Yet the challenges associated with estimating age-specific contact rates have not been decisively met. And so, this thesis attempts to connect contact theory with age-specific contact data in the context of influenza outbreaks in practical ways. In mathematical epidemiology, proportionate mixing is used as the preferred theoretical mixing structure and so, the frame of discussion of this dissertation follows this specific theoretical framework. The questions that drive this dissertation, in the context of influenza dynamics, proportionate mixing, and control, are:
I. What is the role of age-aggregation on the dynamics of a single outbreak? Or simply speaking, does the number and length of the age-classes used to model a population make a significant difference on quantitative predictions?
II. What would the age-specific optimal influenza vaccination policies be? Or, what are the age-specific vaccination policies needed to control an outbreak in the presence of limited or unlimited vaccine stockpiles?
Intertwined with the above questions are issues of resilience and uncertainty including, whether or not data collected on mixing (by social scientists) can be used effectively to address both questions in the context of influenza and proportionate mixing. The objective is to provide answers to these questions by assessing the role of aggregation (number and length of age classes) and model robustness (does the aggregation scheme selected makes a difference on influenza dynamics and control) via comparisons between purely data-driven model and proportionate mixing models.
Being prepared to respond to difficult situations that arise in public health practice is an essential skill for the public health workforce.This empathic responding guide was designed to train students, volunteers, and staff of the ASU COVID-19 Case Investigation Team. The guide provides an overview of empathic communication, walks through a framework for responding with empathy, and outlines common difficult situations that arise in public health along with ways to respond with empathy to these situations. This guide can be adapted to a wide variety of settings and is meant to be used as a training tool for public health case investigators and other staff. This guide, available in a full and an abridged version, can be paired with hands-on workshops to provide engaging continuing education opportunities for public health teams.
This communication guide outlines examples of specific situations that are difficult to respond to, and pairs them with examples of how to respond with empathy. This guide depicts these difficult case statements as rows with bold, italic text. Beneath each scenario is an example of an empathic response (underlined) that can lead to a factual response or survey prompt (Figure 1). The responses use empathic communication to show the case that you are witnessing the emotion, rather than moving to the survey without acknowledging emotion. There is no one right answer to any difficult case statement.
Being prepared to respond to difficult situations that arise in public health practice is an essential skill for the public health workforce.This empathic responding guide was designed to train students, volunteers, and staff of the ASU COVID-19 Case Investigation Team. The guide provides an overview of empathic communication, walks through a framework for responding with empathy, and outlines common difficult situations that arise in public health along with ways to respond with empathy to these situations. This guide can be adapted to a wide variety of settings and is meant to be used as a training tool for public health case investigators and other staff. This guide can be paired with hands-on workshops to provide engaging continuing education opportunities for public health teams.