The main topics covered in these chapters include the role of public health in violence prevention and HIV prevention.
Overall, violent crimes have decreased in the United States. With that being said, rates among girls and younger children of smaller towns appear to be on the rise. Even though violent crimes have decreased, there are far too many injuries that occur daily that are preventable. By the end of 2004, more than 944,000 people had been diagnosed with AIDS in the United States, of whom 529,000 (56 percent) had died (Center for Disease Control and prevention, 2005). Reducing HIV infections requires more than relying on individual behavior change. Chapter 15 talked about two new directions for HIV prevention that practitioners can use. The first one is to take cues from other fields of public health, most notably injury prevention and tobacco control, which have used policy as an integral part of the strategy to achieve desired outcomes. The second method involves developing interventions that will directly affect the sexual networks that facilitate viral transmission.
I think it is horrible how many violent crimes there are and I think it is really important that we learn about how to prevent violence. We should really reduce the level of violence that is shown on television or maybe even establish a ban on guns.
There are many different interventions to prevent HIV; however, there is a lack of understanding with which of these interventions may have greater or lesser effectiveness in different populations. We also need to consider different areas and phases of the epidemic.
All together this book had a lot of good information about primary prevention and there was a lot of new information for me.
Three most significant things I learned are:
- How important primary prevention is and how it helps the health care system not to be overbooked because less people would need medical attention.
- How effective policies are to improve people’s health.
- The role of public health in violence prevention.
I recommend this book to everybody who wants to learn about primary prevention of unnecessary illness and injury. I think everyone who is interested about health topics and how to help people would really enjoy this book.