1 IHP 330 Milestone 2
IHP Milestone II
Salmonella in The Caribbean
Ana Pascual
Southern New Hampshire University
June 5, 2021
2 IHP 330 Milestone 2
Population
Summary
Back in the 1980's concerns were raised about a Salmonella virus outbreak in the
Caribbean due to an increase in diarrhea cases among locals and tourists in some of the Islands.
Between 1988 and 1997 a study was conducted among the population of Trinidad and Tobago to
determine the sources and the type of virus affecting its residents as there are different types of
the Salmonella infection such as Enteritidis, Typhimurium and others. All individuals were
becoming ill with the virus regardless the age, gender and location of residence. In order to
control the outbreak, it was necessary to find out how, where, who and when the outbreak
started.
Social and behavioral determinants
The three social and behavioral determinants associated with the public health issue in this
specific case of Trinidad and Tobago are government, location and educational. Government
because there was no efficiency nor monitoring to ensure and force businesses on following
safety protocols to safeguard the public well-being. Moreover, according to the article
"Salmonella in the Caribbean" (2016), expressed that the communicable disease surveillance
system in place at the time did not support the timely detention, nor the investigation of risk
factors related with infections. Location is another determinant for the outbreak, the first is the
warm weather conditions of the Island which are the most suitable for this kind of virus to
propagate and second there were ten farms in the area that had no microbial surveillance to
safeguard the quality of the eggs being distributed to the consumers. Out of the ten farms in the
country, six of the farms where unsafe due to their unsanitary product handling. Education is the
most critical of all as it affects the handling of food when being prepared for consumption.
3 IHP 330 Milestone 2
Teaching residents about the cause of the disease and what they can do to help prevent the
propagation of the same is imperative such as washing hands before and after preparing food
Disparities
The first disparity is within the farms that did not show concern about following hygiene
protocols nor initiative taking safety measures about preventing and monitoring their flocks to
keep them free from diseases. In addition, the time that was taking some sectors of the health
care providers in regard to reporting a detected case where to long allowing the disease to spread
more rapidly. The second disparity in this case was the lack of regulations to enforce the
monitoring over these farms whereas describe in the article the conditions where the flocks were
kept it was unsanitary. The third disparity was communication. By the time the agency
responsible to monitoring diseases to ensure their control was fifty-six days. If proper
communication channels were in place the probabilities for an outbreak could have been reduced
dramatically.
Determinants related to disparities
The lack of authorities