In my position as a public health nurse, the public health information I would deem important in justifying the need for a mass inoculation initiative includes; the mortality rate of the new influenza strain, the number of individuals being infected by the virus daily, the modes of transmission, the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, the demography statistics and the cost involved (Anderson et al., 2020). This data can be retrieved from public healthcare institutions such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Khoury et al., 2020). The World Health Organization and the National Center for Health Statistics are other sources. Such organizations gather and curate public health data resources such as surveys, administrative records, peer-reviewed entries, claims data and disease registries. Some data is needed to evaluate the success of such a program. This data includes; vaccine coverage (number of individuals who have gotten the inoculation, vaccine efficacy (rate of protection to the immunized persons), vaccine effectiveness, cost of the initiative and the persistence of the new strain after inoculation (Doherty et al., 2016). The eventual triumph of the mass vaccination initiative will be determined by a reduction in the occurrence and transmission of the virus. In case of such an occurrence, as a public health nurse, I would contact the CDC first in order to communicate the necessity of a mass inoculation program whether internationally or locally, since they already have health communication avenues in place. Moreover, I would take advantage of the wide-reaching and fast communication capacity of the media in relaying health information to the public. Media in this context includes social media and the internet, radio, tv and print (CDC, 2020).

References

Anderson, S., Manikkavasagan, G., & Cameron, C. (2020). The design, evaluation, and management of immunisationprogrammes. Health Knowledge. Retrieved 11 November 2020, from https://www.healthknowledge.org.uk/public-health-textbook/disease-causation-diagnostic/2g-communicable-disease/immunisation-programmes.

CDC. (2020). Communicating During an Outbreak or Public Health Investigation | Epidemic Intelligence Service | CDC. Cdc.gov. Retrieved 11 November 2020, from https://www.cdc.gov/eis/field-epi-manual/chapters/Communicating-Investigation.html.

Doherty, M., Buchy, P., Standaert, B., Giaquinto, C., & Prado- Cohrs, D. (2016). Vaccine impact: Benefits for human health. Vaccine, 34(52), 6707-6714. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2016.10.025

Khoury, M., Armstrong, G., Bunnell, R., Cyril, J., &Iademarco, M. (2020). The intersection of genomics and big data with public health: Opportunities for precision public health. PLOS Medicine, 17(10), e1003373. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1003373