The proposed public health campaign would consist of three main steps. The first step involves evaluating the logistical requirements for the campaign and outlining their roles in the public health campaign. This process would only take one month. The second step involves identifying partners to support the public health campaign and assigning them different roles in the public health campaign. This process would take two months because it could be difficult to reach some of the potential stakeholders. The third step would outline the implementation and monitoring processes for the public health campaign. It should take three months. The following table explains the timeline for the public health campaign.
Description of Public Health Campaign and Its Effects on Behavioral Change
Sierra Leone’s health problems in the Ebola fight stem from the failures of the health system to overcome some cultural practices that promote the spread of the disease (Mans, 2014). The proposed public health strategy would promote the use of modern health interventions to prevent the spread of the disease. To meet this goal, the public health plan would increase partnerships between public and private entities to expand the access of public health officials to vulnerable populations. Furthermore, since there are ongoing efforts to control the spread of the disease, the proposed public health campaign would support ongoing stakeholder support through broad-based coalitions. The campaign would also affect behavioral change by educating people about the dangers of continuing to practice risky health behaviors, such as eating bush meat and hugging people who have died from Ebola.
How the Target Audience Would Adopt the Public Health Campaign
Some people perceive Ebola with a lot of fear and paranoia. This paper has also demonstrated how conspiracy theories could create mistrust between people and authorities. The proposed health campaign aims to diffuse some of these challenges by educating people about the epistemology of the disease. This way, they would be educated about its occurrence, prevention, and management. By understanding this information, they would help to spread the same information to other people and create more awareness about how to prevent its spread (Pittman, 2010).
How to Incorporate Culturally Relevant and Sensitive Material to the Campaign
This paper has already highlighted the importance of incorporating culturally relevant and sensitive material to the proposed public health plan. To do so, community leaders will be part of the design committee. They would give valuable information about the exclusion and inclusion criteria for communicating culturally sensitive materials. Secondly, the proposed study would use previous health materials as a template for determining what would appeal to the local population and what would not appeal to the same group.
Legal and Ethical Issues to Consider Before Implementing the Campaign
An effective public health campaign should map the legal and ethical issues that characterize a population (Coughlin, 2006). Ethical concerns in public health surveillance, emergency responses and program evaluation are some of the legal and ethical issues that would appear in the proposed public health campaign. For example, public health officials should evaluate the possible benefits of public health surveillance against the risks of the same intervention on the residents of Sierra Leone (Zoellner et al., 2011). Public health surveillance could also be an ethical concern if it infringes on the privacy and confidentiality rights of the citizens. Collectively, these are the ethical and legal issues associated with implementing the public health campaign.
Strategies for Addressing the Legal and Ethical Issues
Addressing privacy and confidentiality concerns associated with public health surveillance and monitoring requires an effective strategy (Coughlin, 2006). To mitigate these challenges, health officials should not survey the citizens if they would not use the information obtained for the health campaign. In this regard, there would be no “information hoarding.” Secondly, to navigate through the legal issues that surround patient privacy, the public health campaign would adhere to all restrictive policies that protect citizen privacy and confidentiality (Wartenberg & Thompson, 2010).
How to Evaluate the Effectiveness of the Campaign
The effectiveness of the proposed health campaign depends on the achievement of the campaign goals. Introducing positive behavior change among residents of Sierra Leone was one campaign goal. By achieving this objective, safely, we could say the campaign is effective. A reduction in the number of new Ebola infections would also be a criterion for evaluating the effectiveness of the campaign. Such an outcome would symbolize an effective campaign, while a different outcome would mean that the campaign does not meet its goal.
How the Campaign Could Promote Social Change
The proposed public health campaign could promote social change by educating the residents of Sierra Leone about how they could prevent new infections by changing some of their social practices. This way, they would be educated about the epistemology of the disease and oppose the propagation of conspiracy theories that have inhibited their understanding of the disease. The public health campaign could also promote social change by helping the citizens of Sierra Leone to stop practicing cultural practices that increase the risk of contracting Ebola. Public health officials would pay special attention to stop retrogressive burial practices that have increased the number of Ebola cases in the West African country. Lastly, the public health campaign would promote social change by educating rural communities about the dangers of eating bush meat (among other cultural practices that contribute to the spread of Ebola). This strategy would change people’s social and economic practices for the betterment of their health. Broadly, it would minimize the possibility of new infections after the health campaign minimizes the rate of new infections.
References
Coughlin, S. (2006). Ethical issues in epidemiologic research and public health practice. Emerging Themes in Epidemiology, 3(16), 1-10.
Mans, D. (2014). Behavior Change Is Key to the Eradication of Ebola. Web.
Pittman, M. A. (2010). Multisectoral Lessons from Healthy Communities. Preventing Chronic Disease, 7(6), 117.
Wartenberg, D., & Thompson, D. (2010). Privacy Versus Public Health: The Impact of Current Confidentiality Rules. Am J Public Health, 100(3), 407–412.
Zoellner, J., You, W., Connell, C., Smith-Ray, R., Allen, K., Tucker, K.,…Estabrooks, P. (2011). Health literacy is associated with health eating index scores and sugar-sweetened beverage intake: Findings from the rural lower Mississippi delta. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 111(7), 1012-1020.