Karissa Rodriguez
YesterdayJun 5 at 5:18pm
Community Health Outcome: Hepatitis A
Hepatitis is a virus that attacks the liver and causes inflammation. Hepatitis A is spread through contaminated feces. An infected person can unknowingly spread the virus to many people, leading to a community health crisis. There are multiple ways people can be exposed to the hepatitis A virus but typically, outbreaks occur through food or water that contains contaminated feces; poor sanitation and oral-anal sex are also other modes the virus is transmitted (World Health Organization, n.d.). Infection is common in low- and middle-income countries with insufficient sanitary conditions and poor hygienic routines (World Health Organization, n.d.). Outbreaks can occur in higher-income regions due to contamination in public settings such as restaurants. An astounding number of children, about (90%) have been infected with hepatitis a but are usually asymptomatic; however, the virus can still be spread through an asymptomatic carrier (World Health Organization, n.d.).
Depending on one’s health status and comorbidities, death has occurred due to fulminant hepatitis (acute liver failure), accounting for 0.5% of the mortality from viral hepatitis (World Health Organization, n.d.). Common symptoms of Hepatitis A are nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, fatigue, malaise, decreased appetite, and fever (Lorio & John, S. (2023). Some people require hospitalization, which can be secondary to symptoms that lead to dehydration and electrolyte imbalance, such as vomiting and diarrhea. However, this disease is often self-limiting; people can clear the virus independently. To protect the community from exposure, vaccinations are recommended and effective and preventing Hepatitis A, which is given in a 2 to 3-dose series with six months in between injections. However, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one single-antigen hepatitis A vaccine is enough to control outbreaks effectively.
Supportive Data for Health Outcome
Supportive data on Hepatitis A was found from the CDC and is based on an outbreak in Florida. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2022), Florida has been declared outbreak free as of May 5th, 2023. This Hepatitis A outbreak began on January 1st of, 2018 and ended on August 31st of 2021. There were 5,103 cases and 3,649 hospitalizations in that time frame, accounting for 68% of the total cases and 77 deaths (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2022). Data can be obtained from three reputable sources: the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, and the National Institute of Health. All of these sources are accessible online, and continuously make an effort to keep track of global health concerns regarding disease outbreaks such as hepatitis A. Many times information is updated and current for tracking purposes and public knowledge.
Hepatitis A: A Retrospective Cohort Study
This research study by Johnson et al., (2019) aims to look at adherence rates of multi-dose vaccinations for hepatitis A and B in adults. This study was performed in the United Kingdom (UK). The methods used were to access the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care data source. This anonymized electronic health record (EHR) contains data from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD), which included 5 million patients with active EHRs to access the information for this analysis (Johnson et al., 2019). The study population consisted of adults ages 19 years and older who had a recorded dose of hepatitis A, hepatitis B, or a combination hepatitis A/B vaccine; moreover, the study population was strategically separated into cohorts by the vaccine they received (Johnson et al., 2019). “Baseline and outcome measures were summarized descriptively using means, medians, 95% confidence intervals (CIs), standard deviations, and frequency distributions for categorical variables” (Johnson et al., 2019, para, 11). The numbers of adults initiating a hepatitis vaccine ser
thesis was rejected. Results in this study by Johnson et al., (2019) showed that 11%, which totaled 42,294 adults, completed the second dose of hepatitis A within the recommended time-frame of 12 months, and while that percentage seems low, compliance rates did increase over the 36 months.
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2022). Outbreaks of hepatitis A across the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/outbreaks/2017March-HepatitisA.htm
Lorio, N. & John, S. (2023). Hepatitis A. In: StatPearls . Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2023 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK459290/
Johnson, K. D., Lu, X., & Zhang, D. (2019). Adherence to hepatitis A and hepatitis B multi-dose vaccination schedules among adults in the United Kingdom: a retrospective cohort study. BMC Public Health, 19(1), N.PAG. https://doi-org.ezproxylocal.library.nova.edu/10.1186/s12889-019-6693-5
World Health Organization. (n.d.). Hepatitis A. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/hepatitis-a
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