Social factors key determinants in disease outbreaks, a telling pointer to professionalize community interventions
Author Affiliations
- 1Department of Social Work, National College, Thiruvanathapuram, India
Int. Res. J. Social Sci., Volume 10, Issue (1), Pages 65-68, January,14 (2021)
Abstract
The epidemiology of a large number of endemics and diseases evidently shows that social factors are key determinants, which deserve to be viewed seriously. It is a telling pointer for social workers to augment and strengthen expertise in: dealing with public health issues most methodically, developing social protocols to assist health care professionals in outbreak management and morbidity surveillance, designing community intervention strategies by integrating the services of Government Agencies and Non Governmental Organizations, examining social determinants of communicable diseases to frame evidence based interventions, putting up a comprehensive blueprint to address health inequities and disseminating health literacy programmes A mechanism like the single-window system devised for consolidating, coordinating and standardizing service delivery of NGOs, docked with the support of a Surveillance Council constituted for developing relevant insights and intervention strategies would help the community curb disease outbreaks significantly. A road map developed on the basis of community profile would serve as a good tool to keep tabs on social determinants for checking health inequities to a large extent. Effective communication builds up a strong network of professional contacts with Community Members, Health Care Providers, Media, Local Administration and NGOs. Networking is an amazing technique to invoke the cooperation and compliance of community members in translating key instructions into virtual action, which does demand professionalism and training. Social Workers should be well versed in manning risk communication during disease outbreaks. The growth of evidence based interventions depends a lot on the development of communication tools and strategies, particularly during health emergencies. The more and more professionalism is incorporated in interventions the more and more the community benefits.
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