The third key factor is providing antiretroviral treatment this is also provided by the NHS. This treatment allows people living with HIV to enjoy longer, healthier lives, and as such it acts as an incentive for HIV testing. It also brings HIV-positive people into contact with health care workers who can deliver prevention messages and interventions. Studies suggest that HIV-positive people may be less likely to engage in risky behaviour if they are enrolled in treatment programmes. Nevertheless, it is also possible that widespread availability of treatment may make some members of the wider population less fearful of HIV infection, and hence less willing to take precautions.
Sexual transmission
Someone can eliminate or reduce their risk of becoming infected with HIV during sex by choosing to:
- Abstain from sex or delay first sex
- Be faithful to one partner or have fewer partners
- Condomise, which means using male or female condoms consistently and correctly
There are a number of effective ways to encourage people to adopt safer sexual behaviour, including media campaigns, social marketing, peer education and small group counselling. I think sex education for young people is an essential part of HIV prevention. This should include training in life skills such as negotiating healthy sexual relationships, as well as accurate and explicit information about how to practise safer sex. I think sex education is more effective at preventing sexually transmitted infections than education that focuses on teaching abstinence until marriage. Researhing the web I also came to know that condoms used consistently and correctly are highly effective at preventing HIV infection.
The barriers or Sexual Transmission?
It is usually not easy for people to maintain changes in sexual behaviour. In particular, young people often have difficulty remaining abstinent, and women in male-dominated societies are frequently unable to discuss condom use, let alone abstinence. Many couples are forced to have unprotected sex in order to have children. Others associate condoms with promiscuity or lack of trust.
Some societies find it difficult to discuss sex openly, and some authorities restrict what subjects can be discussed in the classroom, or in public information campaigns, for moral or religious reasons. Particularly contentious issues include premarital sex, condom use and homosexuality, the last of which is illegal or taboo in much of the world. Marginalisation of groups at high risk - such as sex workers and men who have sex with men - can be a major hindrance to HIV prevention efforts, authorities are often unwilling to allocate enough resources to programmes targeting these groups.
Transmission through blood
People who share equipment to inject recreational drugs risk becoming infected with HIV from other drug users. Methadone maintenance and other drug treatment programmes are effective ways to help people eliminate this risk by giving up injected drugs altogether. However, there will always be some injecting drug users who are unwilling or unable to end their habit, and these people should be encouraged to minimise the risk of infection by not sharing equipment.
Needle exchange programmes have been shown to reduce the number of new HIV infections without encouraging drug use. These programmes distribute clean needles and safely dispose of used ones, and also offer related services such as referrals to drug treatment centres and HIV counselling and testing. Needle exchanges are a necessary part of HIV prevention in any community that contains injecting drug users.
Also important for injecting drug users are community outreach, small group counselling and other activities that encourage safer behaviour and access to available prevention options.
The barriers for blood transmission
Despite the evidence that they do not encourage drug use, some authorities still refuse to support needle exchanges and other programmes to help injecting drug users. Restrictions on pharmacies selling syringes without prescriptions, and on possession of drug paraphernalia, can also hamper HIV prevention programmes by making it harder for drug users to avoid sharing equipment.
Many resource-poor countries lack facilities for rigorously screening blood supplies. In addition a lot of countries have difficulty recruiting enough donors, and so have to resort to importing blood or paying their citizens to donate, which is not the best way to ensure safety.
In much of the world the safety of medical procedures in general is compromised by lack of resources, and this may put both patients and staff at greater risk of HIV infection.
Mother to child transmission
HIV can be transmitted from a mother to her baby during pregnancy, labour and delivery, and later through breastfeeding. The first step towards reducing the number of babies infected in this way is to prevent HIV infection in women, and to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
There are a number of things that can be done to help a pregnant woman with HIV to avoid passing her infection to her child. A course of antiretroviral drugs given to her during pregnancy and labour as well as to her newborn baby can greatly reduce the chances of the child becoming infected. Although the most effective treatment involves a combination of drugs taken over a long period, even a single dose of treatment can cut the transmission rate by half.
A caesarean section is an operation to deliver a baby through its mother’s abdominal wall, which reduces the baby’s exposure to its mother’s body fluids. This procedure lowers the risk of HIV transmission, but is likely to be recommended only if the mother has a high level of HIV in her blood, and if the benefit to her baby outweighs the risk of the intervention.
Weighing risks against benefits is also critical when selecting the best feeding option. The World Health Organisation advises mothers with HIV not to breastfeed whenever the use of replacements is acceptable, feasible, affordable, sustainable and safe. However, if safe water is not available then the risk of life-threatening conditions from replacement feeding may be greater than the risk from breastfeeding. An HIV positive mother should be counselled on the risks and benefits of different infant feeding options and should be helped to select the most suitable option for her situation.
The barriers for mother transmission
In much of the world a lack of drugs and medical facilities limits what can be done to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Antiretroviral drugs are not widely available in many resource-poor countries, caesarean section is often impractical, and many women lack the resources needed to avoid breastfeeding their babies.
HIV-related stigma is another obstacle to preventing mother-to-child transmission. Some women are afraid to attend clinics that distribute antiretroviral drugs, or to feed their babies formula, in case by doing so they reveal their HIV status.
Prevention against lung cancer
Doctors cannot always explain why one person gets lung cancer and another does not. However, scientists have studied general patterns of lung cancer in the population to learn what things around us and what things we do in our lives may increase our chances of developing lung cancer.
Anything that increases a person's chances of developing a disease is called a risk factor; anything that decreases a person's chances of developing a disease is called a protective factor.
Lung cancer prevention means avoiding the lung cancer risk factors and increasing the protective factors that can be controlled so that a person's chance of developing cancer decreases.
Preventing Lung Cancer: Know the Risk Factors
The first step in the prevention of lung cancer is knowing the risk factors. Researchers have identified the following lung cancer risk factors:
- Smoking
- Second-hand smoke
- Environmental causes
- Beta-carotene in smokers.
Smoking
By far the largest risk factor for lung cancer is smoking. Studies show that smoking tobacco products in any form is the major cause of lung cancer. People who stop smoking and never start again lower their risk of developing lung cancer or of having lung cancer come back.
Second-Hand Smoke
Second-hand tobacco smoke also causes . This is smoke that comes from a burning cigarette or other tobacco product, or smoke that is exhaled by smokers. People who inhale second-hand smoke are exposed to the same cancer-causing agents as smokers, although in weaker amounts. Inhaling second-hand smoke is called involuntary or passive smoking. These substances can cause lung cancer in people who have never smoked, and combine with cigarette smoke to further increase lung cancer risk in smokers. Many countries are working to control these cancer-causing agents in the workplace.
Air pollution may also increase the risk of lung cancer. Studies show that lung cancer rates are higher in cities with higher levels of air pollution.
Beta Carotene
studies show that beta carotene use in relatively high-intensity smokers increases the risk of lung cancer.
Factors that help Prevent Lung Cancer
Studies show that a diet rich in fruit, and possibly vegetables, may help lower the risk of lung cancer, while excessive alcohol consumption may increase the risk of lung cancer. In addition, studies show that people who are physically active may have a lower risk of lung cancer than those who are not, even after taking cigarette smoking into account. Taking does not reduce the risk of developing lung cancer. prevention starts with learning about the risk factors for lung cancer. It then involves eliminating or minimizing any of those factors that you can control.
Although many lung cancer risk factors can be avoided, it is important to keep in mind that avoiding risk factors does not guarantee that you will not get lung cancer. Also, most people with a particular risk factor for cancer do not actually get the disease. Some people are more sensitive than others to factors that can cause lung cancer. Talk to your doctor about prevention methods that might be effective for you.
Local strategies
Local strategies are produced by the local health authority or a local health practice or surgery. They include information on health through booklets and leaflets. They have clinics for both men and women and also provide exercise classes.
Health information booklets
These are provided in most health and social care settings such as your local practice. They are there for everyone to pick up and read. They provide people with more knowledge on different health issues.
Issues affecting disease prevention
Public perception of risk
Some people think that if others can do it and they still seem to be ok it weren’t affect us either if we do it. For example someone if someone has started smoking and they do not want to stop because they may think that all my friends smoke nothing has happened to them, thy don’t seem to be affected in anyway maybe nothing will happen o me either, this is known as dysfunctional belief. Everyone’s body works differently maybe they may not be affected now but they will later in life. No one knows when it may affect them it can happen anytime. Some people think it will never happen to them. The reason why most people believe this is because they have not personally experienced this problem, they believe that it is not true and cannot happen to them. They believe that sop far the problem has not happened therefore will not happen in the future.
Patient doctor concordance
This is known as the patient and doctor agreement, the patient does not go through any training or education to become a patient therefore most of them do not know the advantages concordance brings to them. Most patients want a doctor who is trustworthy, kind, knowledgeable, up to date, confidential, always available, not patronising and etc…
Patient compliance
Some people might go to the doctor get the medicine they need, take it for few days and as days go buy they might stop taking it even if they are recommended to take it. This maybe because they may feel they have gone better or they might just give up taking it because they must have forgot or just cant be bothered taking it anymore. This can worsen the patient’s health because the instructions given to the patient from the doctor have not been fully met in order fir the patient to fully recover. Studies show that even patients with serious illnesses do not take their medication as recommended for an example a patient with asthma should take their inhaler as recommended in order to get better and they may not be taking it as recommended. Research also shows that some patients do not have good understanding about their illness like they do not understand the causes. The weakness is known to be in their communication, the doctor could improve this by improving the patients communication skills in several ways like telling the patient the important piece of the information first, stress the important of compliance, simplifying the information, repeating some information so the patient understands, being specific, and by following up the specific information by calling them for interviews or filling in questionnaires.
