Culture Paper – Immunization in Latino Community

The idea of this paper is to consider the issue of immunization in Latino community, in particular, the question of vaccination. This theme is especially important because vaccination has become an integral part of preventive medicine practice and it provides an opportunity to avoid the risk of high spectra of harmful diseases. The effectiveness of vaccination has determined such a phenomenon like mandatory vaccination of children before entering school. Nevertheless, there are still enough controversies and queries on this theme that require authorization. That is why the contemplation of current issues in the question of vaccination is topical, allowing the researchers to create new methods of immunization improvement. 

In this paper, the author considers the main issues of Latino community immunization, the benefits of immunization practice realization and the ways to improve the situation in the question of Hispanic Americans vaccination.

Culture Paper – Immunization in Latino Community

Preventive medicine is a modern, efficient method of disease obviation that gives a possibility to adapt human immunity to illnesses of modern times. However, despite all the advantages provided by vaccination, there is still a big amount of problems that hinder the development of preventive medicine in the way of vaccination. These problems are especially difficult, considering the situation in the Latino community. Discussion of the ways to decide these issues can become the weighty factor of the vaccination’s positive impact increase.  

First of all, the author needs to enumerate obstacles to vaccination development among the Latinos in the USA. The main problem is the relatively low level of vaccination among Hispanic Americans of different age groups. This is an extensive problem that consists of many factors. It takes part among Hispanic Americans of such age groups: adults, adolescents, and children. 

The most exponential way to present the scale of the vaccination lack level is to compare the appropriate indicator among Hispanic and Non-Hispanic Americans. The appropriate information is presented in tables lower. The information in the tables is provided by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health.

Table 1

 

Table 2

Table 3

The problem of immunization is caused by different factors. Among them the most significant are as follows.

There is also certain share of skepticism in the question of vaccination effectiveness. There is still discussion taking place about how useful vaccines are. The other question is whether vaccination brings more harm or benefit. The same problem takes place in society and leads to avoidance of vaccination among children, particularly in Latino community, because of parent’s negative attitude to vaccination practice. Even the mandatory vaccination before entering school does not solve this problem fully.

There exist difficulties in creating a vaccine. The main problem, in this case, is a rapid adaptation of viruses to immunity changes, which makes the production of vaccine quite a complicated matter. This circumstance leads to a reduction of vaccination quality and use. Unfortunately, this problem is quite specific and, for now, it can be solved only by the means of preventive medicine, high quality of human hygiene, and availability of clean water and food. In the future, this problem can also be solved by the way of inclusion of modern technologies in vaccination   

The content of vaccine that does not always have a positive effect is another factor to consider when discussing issues of immunization in Latino community. Another problem of modern vaccination is the presence of ingredients in the vaccine harmful to human health. Among them are formaldehydes, mercury (thimerosal), and aluminum phosphate that are toxic to human body. This circumstance is particularly acute because vaccines go directly into the bloodstream without filtration by the liver. These problems lead to the necessity of vaccine quality and safety increase.

Finally, there is such a factor as availability of vaccines for the Hispanic population. There are still difficulties with population’s access to vaccination. There is a difference in degrees of family’s access to modern vaccines. This matter is connected with presence of vaccines in local medical institutions. Providers in public and private sectors deliver the variety of services, but there is still a problem of encompassing vaccination among children. The way to solve this problem is to organize the responsibility for children’s vaccination sharing among parents, providers, and health departments. The proper solvation can be found for other units of Latin community. Another question, which requires solution, is a question of vaccine prices. This factor also effects negatively family’s access to preventive medicine.

As the author can see, there are enough problems and questions in the matter of adequate preventive medicine services and immunization, so the solutions have to be offered. Next, the author will discuss the advantages of immunization, so a reader can assess the relevance of changes in this field.

The Advantages of Immunization

Despite the fact that there are still a plenty of problems regarding the question of immunization, the practical experience of vaccination shows the effectiveness of this method in preventive medicine. Along with other methods of health improving, like improved sanitation and hygiene, safer and healthier food, family planning and others, vaccination is an important tool of diseases prevention. The idea is to consider the main achievements of vaccination practice.

Among them, the most significant one is overcoming epidemics of such harmful diseases like smallpox, polio, pertussis, influenza, and others. Achieving similar results was possible only because of unique function of vaccination – immunity improvement in terms of particular disease. This fact, in conjunction with other methods of health improvement, gives a human a complex immune system, protecting an individual from main illnesses of nowadays. Though, there are still basic diseases that cannot be cured by modern methods, the principle laid down in the framework of immunization gives the medicine a hope of finding a decision for this problem in future.

Another advantage given by mandatory vaccination is the reduction of the risk of diseases among tourists who travel to exotic countries. Usually, tourists do not have the immunity against illnesses that are spread in such countries. That is why vaccination in such case is a required condition for travelers, along with other ways of preventive medicine, like medical consultations on the question of proper behavior that allows avoiding infection. 

The Ways to Improve the Effectiveness of Immunization

To answer the question about the ways of immunization improvement, the author must consider the problem-solving techniques for the problems discussed earlier in this paper. 

One of the main challenges, in this case, is the issue of public confidence in vaccination. This problem can be solved by using counseling interventions. A patient must be educated about the positive effect of vaccine usage, risks of avoiding vaccination and the importance of immunization, especially among children. A patient should also be familiar with the vaccination calendar and understand the responsibility for his health. It means that not only the physician must be interested in adequate and timely vaccination, but a patient too. Another negative factor in this situation is patient’s doubts about the quality of vaccine and its harmlessness to the organism. Incidentally, the solution to the problem is the same as earlier – active informational policy on the population on the question of vaccine’s harmlessness. 

Another obstacle to the immunization improvements is difficulties with vaccines creation. It associates with the particularity of viruses, their adaptation skill, and the complexity of vaccine elements selection. 

In this case, there are two solutions of this problem. The first solution is an enhancement of vaccine creation methods that allows to improve vaccine’s quality and reduce the possibility of virus’s adaptation to it. The second solution is the development of efficient methods of disease prevention that combine the facilities of vaccination and preventive medicine tools – the ensuring of safe and qualitative water and food resources, hygiene conditions and other terms of reducing the risk of disease. In this way, the physicians use another method of immunization that decreases the illness risk level not by the improvement of patient’s immunity, but by the exclusion of health hazards for the human environment.

Another method of immunization improvement is the implementation of risk assessment practice in the vaccination process, particularly in Latino community. Woolf, Jonas, and Kaplan-Liss write that “risk assessment in the clinical setting refers to the collection of information about risk factors during the history, physical and laboratory examination”. Therefore, risk assessment is considered as the essential part of preventive medicine process. However, because immunization is also a part of preventive medicine, these two methods serve the same target and they can be combined to achieve the maximum positive effect. Particularly, risk assessment method can be used by physicians to predict the possible diseases that can be caused by a patient’s way of life, habits or work specifics, and that can be harmful for patient’s health because of his limited immunity. Using this information, a physician can develop the most usual illnesses prophylactics method that can include the immunization. Considering the patient’s history, a doctor can determine his most frequent illnesses, and so, decide whether problems in immune system cause such health problems. After such an analysis, a doctor can offer an efficient way of disease healing and prophylactics, including vaccination practice. On the assumption of presented information, the author can make a conclusion about the effectiveness of risk assessment usage in the combination with immunization methods. Therefore, although there are still many problems in the question of Hispanic population’s immunization, there are still efficient measures of response to these challenges.

Conclusion

As previously shown, the challenges in the theme of immunization of Latino community are the presence of skepticism about the vaccines effectiveness, difficulties with their production, and vaccine’s availability for population, especially in undeveloped countries. Among the ways to solve these problems, the author has proposed to increase the level of population awareness on the issue of vaccination, its useful effect and harmlessness for human health. This article also discusses the need for shared responsibility between parents, providers, and health department on the question of children’s vaccination. Risk assessment practice is also considered as an efficient method of immunization effect improvement, in the way of this two operations cooperation.

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