Health Committee

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Health Committee
Jessica Lucido Laura Fierce
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Health Committee
Jessica Lucido Laura Fierce and
introducing Victor Woehlke!
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Initial Backwardness

• The purpose of this project is to improve the
  health and quality of life of Adu Achi and the
  surrounding communities.
• To utilize our resources in the best possible
  way, we should identify the way we can make the
  greatest impact with the money available.
• The health committee should determine which
  issues we should tackle based on prevalence in
  the community and our ability to intervene.
• However, we have already pretty well determined
  that our solution will include an improved water
  source.
• Even if we determine clean water is not the most
  pressing issue in the community but a primary
  concern, we will still improve the water source
  due to the nature of our organization and the
  requests of the community.
• Therefore, the health committee should focus on
  water-related diseases, as they directly relate
  to the project, but should also explore health
  concerns of great importance to this community.

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Understanding Health
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Talking to local contacts

• ask general questions to get a basic qualitative
  feel for health in the community
• after general questions are covered, ask
  specifics on important diseases (we will need to
  determine these)
• also ask questions about behavior and such
• explore any records/resources they might have
• find any way they can help us characterize health
  in the community (could we hire them to run lab
  tests?)
• ask about educational services do they have
  training programs? do they have materials? etc.

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Health committee

• developing a health committee to participate in
  the assessment and planning now will be
  beneficial later
• there are countless reasons to create this
  committee
• this committee needs to be comprised of people
  that can spread the word and get things moving,
  but also a good representation of the population
  to be served
• we should develop our health intervention with
  the health committee
• possibly use the PHAST approach by the WHO
• this will allow us to develop an approach that
  is appropriate for this specific community

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Disease Classification
water related
non-water related, but statistically important
fecal-oral or some other human to human
transmission
toxins
vector borne
Onchocerciasis Malaria
Explore further based on water quality results
Intestinal parasites Cholera
HIV/AIDS
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Initial health assessment objectives

• identify the health problems in the community so
  we can attempt to fix them
• give us a starting place from which we can
  measure our progress
• supply sufficient data to implement some form of
  health intervention
• health education
• hospital renovation

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Choosing a method of assessment
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Selecting test population

• statistically determine how many people we need
  to survey to have accurate results
• this group needs to selected randomly
• this group would also be good for the pilot test
  group
• gather initial information use this as initial
  health characterization
• for analysis of the problem we should re-choose a
  random group of people

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Intervention
fecal-oral or some other human to human
transmission
toxins
vector borne
HIV/AIDS

• improved water source should help
• recontamination education
• improve hygiene and sanitation

• education
• important to utilize local resources

• improved water source could help
• other intervention is difficult
• education about water storage

• improved water source should suffice any
  intervention is water quality? surface water?

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Health Education

• this phase will focus on the pilot study for
  health education
• based on Safe Water by the CDC
• working with water quality and surface water
• this group is assessed before - initial health
  characterization - and after in order to measure
  success
• necessary changes are made

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To be completed immediately

• General understanding of health in Nigeria and
  Africa
• this is necessary so we are sure to know what
  questions to ask
• after obtaining a basic understanding, we need to
  prioritize
• those diseases deemed most important and relevant
  should be explored in more detail
• understand details of transmission
• intervention basics
• explore how we can determine if someone has this
  disease
• Contact in-country professionals
• find if there is any way to get in contact with
  them from here
• obtain as much information as possible general
  local health, services available
• Define objectives for intervention methods
  considered
• hospital renovation
• health education

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Phase I Implementation

• Assessment
• 3 days talking to local contacts
• 15 days training health committee
• 30 days assessing test population
• Education
• 15 days developing curriculum with health
  committee
• 60? day of pilot study
• Hospital Renovation
• 30 days?
• 1, 2, 3, 4

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The End

• Please help us!