Impact of Closing Schools/ Universities on Slowing the Spread of Influenza Pandemic on Education Settings
Write the evidence regarding the impact of closing schools/universities (length of time to be determined) on slowing the spread of pandemic influenza within educational settings.
Background
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has detected a novel strain of influenza A present in western U.S. as part of its routine influenza surveillance. Evidence is suggestive that the virus does not have sustained human-to-human transmission. However, CDC is anticipating that virus will eventually have sustained human-to-human transmission, resulting in widespread human infection throughout the United States and, most likely, throughout the world.
You are an epidemiologist for Benton County Public Health Department and Oregon State University (OSU) has approached you to assist in developing a response plan to implement when the virus establishes sustained human-to-human transmission. You recall from the Infectious Disease Epidemiology class you took during graduate school that non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) are measures to delay the introduction and slow the spread of pandemic influenza and would be appropriate to include in the plan.
You initially focus on personal NPIs such as voluntary home isolation, respiratory etiquette, hand hygiene, and voluntary quarantine as measures to include in the plan. Your attention then turns to community NPIs such as school closures and dismissals and social distancing.
Assignment instructions
In 1,000 words or less, summarize the evidence regarding the impact of closing schools/universities (length of time to be determined) on slowing the spread of pandemic influenza within educational settings. You are not advocating either way, you are simply summarizing the current knowledge on the topic. Given the large amount of resources needed and the large impact of closing OSU for a period of time, you should objectively summarize the literature so that OSU administration can have the evidence on hand when a final decision is needed. Given the current COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent transition of OSU to mostly remove learning, another way of thinking about this issue is whether the data supported the decision.
Use the rubric to guide the development of your report.
Your search of the literature could reveal studies using simulation modeling to examine the impact of school closures. Please limit these types of studies to two (2) articles included in your report. Also, exclude review articles and policy briefs. Your focus should be on articles reporting results from single studies.
Include a Reference section using AMA Manual of Style, 10th Edition(http://sites.uci.edu/medsim/files/2015/03/AMA-citation-Guide.pdf) (Links to an external site.). Include references as superscript numbers (outside of final punctuation) in the main text with full corresponding citation in the references section.
Include separate pdfs or direct links of all journal articles used when summarizing the evidence for school closures.
Submission instructions
Your response should be in Word format, 1″ margins on all sides. English grammar is correct.
I also attached the influenza lecture and rubric below.
Answer preview:
word limit:995