A white paper is a short policy document that advocates for a particular position or recommendation. Individuals and organizations can increase their chances of impacting policy through well-written White Papers. Prepare a White Paper for the Miami-Dade Health Department or relevant local government advocating for funding for the selected program or policy based on your previous assignment. Include in this: an implementation plan, a policy or program evaluation plan, and a plan for stakeholder engagement and dissemination. In your white paper explain how this option would improve health equity and address the diverse populations in the county. In addition, identify one county or state legislator currently working on the problem, and select one alternative method (YouTube video, one-page policy memo, infographic, etc.) to advocate for your policy recommendation. Describe how you would use your chosen method to advocate.
Please use the template provided below for the white paper. A white paper is similar to a policy brief, with the difference being that a white paper advocated for a particular position or recommendation. Your white paper should be about two to three pages in length. For the second part of the assignment, you only need to identify the person, make a choice of an alternative medium, and justify your choice. You are not required to actually produce the video/memo/infographic or whatever you choose.
Title
Executive Summary
A brief summary of what the White Paper entails and is used to help the reader to quickly understand the paper’s purpose.
Background / Problem(s)
Provide readers with the general background information on the issue at hand. You can build this part on the Statement of the Problem and the Background parts from your previous assignment.
Recommendations
After explaining the background and problems, propose your solution or recommendations. Only one option will be recommended. You can use the one you recommend from the last assignment. Include a policy or program evaluation plan, and a plan for stakeholder engagement and dissemination. Write my Essay Online Writing Service with Professional Essay Writers – Explain how this option would improve health equity and address the diverse populations in the county.
Conclusion
The conclusion should briefly restate the main findings and show readers why the goals and/or solutions presented in the previous section are in their interests. What makes white paper conclusions different than other conclusion is the emphasis on what the reader can do as a next step.
References
Place works cited at the end of your white paper.
A proposal to Address the Decline in Immunizations in Florida
Statement of the Problem
The anti-vaccine movement is growing stronger every day, and our state is one of those steadily losing to the movement. Despite the critical need for parents to protect their children and neighbors from some preventable but communicable diseases, some religious and political factors are convincing them otherwise.
Background
Over the last few years, the United States has suffered a decline in the efforts to immunize everyone against vaccine-preventable diseases. According to the 2015 National Immunization Survey, less than three-quarters of the American child population were properly immunized as expected by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices . Vaccination helps to control the spread of diseases that can devastate the state of public health in a federation, country, state, county, or municipality. In fact, the decline of immunization gains in any part of the world presents a threatening situation for other communities globally. Therefore, as a state, Florida owes its citizens and fellow Americans, the due diligence of safeguarding its public health. Unfortunately, reports from the Florida Department of Health indicate that Florida is one of the states steadily declining in its fight against the anti-vaccine movement .
Anti-vaccine beliefs have caused some parents to distrust public health authorities. They have numerous concerns about vaccine safety, and some reject vaccination attempts by the government to vaccinate their children because of deep-set religious reasons . Therefore, they apply for nonmedical exemptions when enrolling their children in schools. In the state of Florida, Form DH681, Florida Certification of Immunization, allow parents exempt their children from immunizations when their religious beliefs conflict with vaccination practices . As a result of those exemption, the Florida Department of Health Annual Immunization Assessment of Kindergarten Students 2018–19 revealed that in 2018, the state did not meet the 95% coverage requirement of kindergarten students in all doses of all vaccines upon entry to school .
Furthermore, Researchers have collected statics affirming that the anti-vaccine movement indeed did bring about an increment in the outbreaks of measles. Since 2009, the rise of the philosophical movement has led to a drastic increase in vaccine nonmedical exemptions (NMEs). From various statistics collected across the entire Federation, a clear and directly proportional relationship was established between the rise of nonmedical vaccine exemptions (NMEs) and disease outbreaks . The statistics only prove that the consequences of defying modern-day medical advancements can be detrimental for general public health. Therefore, the state needs to enact laws and policies that reduce the number of nonmedical vaccine exemptions (NMEs) in schools.
Responses and Policy Options
The following proposed interventions are intended to address the decline in immunization in the state of Florida:
1. Reinforcing vaccination exemptions that are justified medically for school enrollment.
Supporting vaccination exemptions that are justified medically will limit the number of children that are un-vaccinated in the schools throughout the state, because those who will be exempted from immunization will have valid medical and clinical evidence that impedes vaccination. This can potentially reduce the number of children who are not immunized. This measure would be both cost-effective and equitable. Also, it would not be in conflict with any present law.
2. Imposing requirements for full immunization for students enrolling in schools and childcare services.
It is the responsibility of every citizen to fight disease spread and infection. It is the prerogative of parents to provide adequate medical cover to their children. Moreover, schools and the state must protect our children from possible infections and disease outbreaks. It is unfair to put our kindergarten children with other children who aren’t immunized, especially considering the nature of communicable diseases such as measles, yellow fever, and mumps. It exposes them to a potentially mutating strain of the diseases. Therefore, if all students enrolled at schools are immunized the risks of these disease outbreaks will be considerably reduced. Even if this measure is difficult to attain in terms of politics, it provides health equity, and it would be very effective without costing much money.
3. Introducing and empowering restrictions against vaccination exemptions based on nonmedical reasons during school and childcare enrollment.
It makes sense to protect the philosophical and religious beliefs of every person as long as it doesn’t involve endangering others. The reason why parents are allowed to enroll children in schools via nonmedical exemptions is a noble one. However, requiring children to be immunized from diseases before enrolling to schools is a matter of grave concern for general public health, because many of those diseases are communicable. Lower levels of immunization at schools could lead to egregious and severe outbreaks of diseases such as measles, mumps, and rubella. By reducing the number of nonmedical exemptions from immunization those outbreaks could be contained. This option could be in contradiction to actual regulations, but its advantage and health equity, makes it a good alternative for tackling vaccination declines. Besides, it is cost-effective.
The table below shows how each solution option should be weighted in terms of cost, efficacy, political feasibility, and health equity.
Research Topics – Criteria Health Equity Cost Political Feasibly Efficacy
Reinforcing vaccination exemptions that are justified medically for school enrollment 30% 20% 20% 30%
Imposing requirements for full immunization for students enrolling in schools and childcare services.
40% 20% 10% 30%
Introducing and empowering restrictions against vaccination exemptions based on nonmedical reasons during school and childcare enrollment 30% 20% 10% 40%
References
Hill, H. A., Elam-Evans, L. D., Yankey, D., Singleton, J. A., & Kang, Y. (2017). Vaccination coverage among children aged 19–35 months—United States, 2016. MMWR. Morbidity and mortality weekly report, 66(43), 1171.
Florida Department of Health. (2019). Annual Immunization Assessment1 of Kindergarten Students 2018–19 By County, Public and Private Schools, December 2018. Florida Department of Health.
Florida Department of Health. (2019, October 20). Exemption from Required Immunizations. Retrieved from Florida Department of Health Web site: https://monkessays.com/write-my-essay/floridahealth.gov/programs-and-services/immunization/children-and-adolescents/immunization-exemptions/index.html
National Immunization Surveys. (2018, February 9). NIS-Child Data and Documentation for 2015 to Present. Retrieved from Center for Disease Control and Prevention: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/imz-managers/nis/datasets.html
Olive, J. K., Hotez, P. J., Damania, A., & Nolan, M. S. (2018). The state of the anti-vaccine movement in the United States: A focused examination of nonmedical exemptions in states and counties. PLoS medicine, 15(6), e1002578. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1002578
Introduction
The report explores ways in which the decline in immunizations in Florida can be tackled using three major criteria relevant to the topic. The criteria include: (1) reinforcing vaccination exemptions that are justified medically for school enrollment, (2) imposing requirements for full immunization for students enrolling in schools and childcare services and introducing, (3) and empowering restrictions against vaccination exemptions based on nonmedical reasons during school and childcare enrollment.
Public Health Impact
Reduced immunization could lead to severe outbreaks of infections such as rubella, measles, mumps, Hepatitis A and yellow fever. Immunization vaccines reduce the risk of the public contracting these infectious diseases; hence, the chances of infections outbreaks will be significantly minimized (Ventola, 2016). Therefore, either imposing requirements for full immunization for students enrolling in schools and childcare services, or decresing the numbre of unvaccinated children, will protect children who are more susceptible to these diseases. Doing this helps to reach a large population of citizens, and ultimately boosting public health impact.
Health Equity
Reinforcing exemptions in vaccination that are medically justified leads to the number of unvaccinated children and citizens to be reduced. This is because more parents will ensure that they receive the necessary vaccinations only if it can promote health equity. Health equity can be achieved when citizens are served differently but satisfactorily ( Law, & Gustafson, 2017). Besides, mandatory requirements for complete immunization for individuals enrolling in childcare services and schools will lead to a reduction in the number of unvaccinated children.
Political feasibility
It is the responsibility of the government to ensure its citizen is protected from any form of threat. This role includes protection from medical risks (Renn, 2017). As such, the government is tasked with ensuring that reinforcements meant to promote vaccinations are instituted and implemented, and any obstacles that may hinder this are addressed accordingly. The brief is in compliance with the duty of the nation since criteria 2 which requires the imposition of immunization on all the students enrolling in school. However, this option lack optimal viability because of the conflicts it can pose to the faith of religious citizens
Ethical Issues
Vaccines are put to questions from a religious and traditional point of view, where they conflict with religious beliefs and moral principles. This has, in turn, affected the response to vaccines even when they are meant to do good, people think they bring harm (Hendrix et al., 2016).
Cost
Becasue all of these proposed measures involve a change in policy that is not associated with monetary value; in terms of cost, they are equally cost-effective
Research Topics – Criteria Health Equity (10%) Efficacy (30%) Cost (30%) Political Feasibly (30%)
Reinforcing vaccination exemptions that are justified medically for school enrollment Improved The number of non-vaccinated students would be limited. $0 High
Imposing requirements for full immunization for students enrolling in schools and childcare services.
Improved All students would be vaccinated $0 Low
Introducing and empowering restrictions against vaccination exemptions based on nonmedical reasons during school and childcare enrollment Improved The number of non-vaccinated students would be highly limited. $0 Medium
Interpretation of the Matrix Table
Reinforcing vaccination exemptions that are justified medically for school enrollment improves health equity. This is because allowing such exemptions means the affected citizens will find alternative means of health management while avoiding apparent harm that may be cause by incompatible immunization. This would be both, ethically correct and fair. This measure is highly practical, because it would not imply an exessive conflict in policy devoplemt and accetablility, and it would limit the number of non-immunized children at no moneraty cost.
Imposing requirements for full immunization for students enrolling in schools and childcare services would be probaby the most effective measure, because this would mean that all students, upon school entrance, would be vaccinated and a the lowest risk of contratcting communicable diseases. However, this criterion has the lowest political feasibilty because the implication of compelling all children to undertake vaccination in religious populations. The fairness of this criterion relies in that no children would be at risk of getting sick becuase their classmates are not vaccinated. Furtermore, this measure would not cost any money to implement.
Finally, introducing and empowering restrictions against vaccination exemptions based on nonmedical reasons during school and childcare enrollment will imply a change in policy with no moneraty cost. Additionally, it will have a high impact in reducing the number of unvaccinated children in schools, and it is more practical than imposing vaccination to all children. In terms of health equitiy, this measure would diminish the risk of immunized children to get sick because of disease outbreaks that were ultimately influenced by high rates of non-immunizations.
Conclusion
Summarizing, all of these three criteria were evaluated based on the public good that can provide. After analyzing their impact in health equity, political feasibility, cost, and efficacy, I propose the third option: increasing restrictions against vaccination exemptions based on nonmedical reasons in children in school-age, it should be the one to consider implementing. This is not the most efficatious option, but it’s likely to be achievable with great reduction in unvaccination rates.
References
Hendrix, K. S., Sturm, L. A., Zimet, G. D., & Meslin, E. M. (2016). Ethics and childhood vaccination policy in the United States. American journal of public health, 106(2), 273-278.
Law, V. G., & Gustafson, D. L. (2017). Challenging ‘girls only’publicly funded human papillomavirus vaccination programmes. Nursing inquiry, 24(1), e12140.
Renn, O. (2017). Risk governance: coping with uncertainty in a complex world. Routledge.
Ventola, C. L. (2016). Immunization in the United States: recommendations, barriers, and measures to improve compliance: part 2: adult vaccinations. Pharmacy and Therapeutics, 41(8), 492.
