10 ways to prevent non-communicable diseases

Investigate the global challenge of disease prevention - including both communicable and noncommunicable diseases.

Índice Show

Introduction
Fighting Malaria One Net at a Time

Learners will explore the domestic and global impacts of disease, and learn about some of the strategies that people around the world are using to help reduce the risk of communicable and noncommunicable diseases in their host communities. Finally, each learner will select a disease to research in depth.

Introduction

Maintaining good health and preventing disease are important factors for a person’s quality of life. In low and middle income countries alike, health concerns pose serious economic and social challenges.

Preventable communicable, or infectious, diseases like malaria and HIV/AIDS account for millions of deaths in the world each year, especially in low-income countries. Noncommunicable, or chronic, diseases like heart disease and diabetes are having an increasing effect across the globe.

Disease prevention depends on many factors like access to medical care and supplies, infrastructure, and quality health education. Ensuring equitable access to health care resources like these is a shared global responsibility.

Task

You will research disease prevention issues and investigate how communicable and non-communicable diseases affect the world. You will explore how access to medical services and supplies, as well as access to health education, can play key roles in preventing disease.

Next, you will select one type of communicable or noncommunicable disease to research. Using the information you have collected, you will write a series of journal entries from the perspective of a person living with the disease. In your journal, you will describe the physical symptoms your narrator experiences, the impacts of the disease on their daily life, and what the narrator would want to tell others about preventing the disease.

Use the information collection worksheet to the right to record information as you work through the activity.

Procedures

What are communicable and noncommunicable diseases? Review the links below to learn more about two major types of diseases.
What are some examples of communicable and noncommunicable diseases? Create a Venn diagram to illustrate what communicable and noncommunicable diseases have in common, as well as what distinguishes these types of diseases from one another.
How do communicable diseases affect the world? Listen to the stories below from Peace Corps Volunteers who worked with their communities to reduce the spread of communicable diseases.
1. What communicable disease was addressed in the video?
2. What resources were distributed to prevent communicable disease in North-Central Senegal?
How do noncommunicable diseases affect the world? Noncommunicable – or chronic – diseases are the leading cause of death and disability in the world. They make up a greater percentage of deaths in high-income countries than in low-income countries, including 7 out of every 10 deaths in the U.S.
Review each of the major risk factors for noncommunicable disease: Which of these factors are most prevalent in your community? What do you think are the most effective ways to reduce these risks? Watch the video below to learn how communities in conjunction with Peace Corps Volunteers have worked to address malaria - a communicable disease.

Peace Corps Volunteer April Williamson describes an initiative to collect and distribute more than 2,000 bed nets across north-central Senegal to prevent the spread of malaria.

Fighting Malaria One Net at a Time

Healthy habits prevent germs and infectious diseases from spreading. Learn, practice, and teach healthy habits.

Food can carry germs. Wash hands, utensils, and surfaces often when preparing any food, especially raw meat. Always wash fruits and vegetables. Cook and keep foods at proper temperatures. Don’t leave food out – refrigerate promptly.

One of the most important healthy habits to prevent the spread of germs is to clean your hands. Our hands can carry germs, so it is important to wash them often, even if they don’t look dirty.

When to Wash Your Hands

Make sure to clean your hands before and after:

Using the bathroom or changing diapers
Eating
Cooking or serving food
Treating a cut or wound
Contact with a sick person
Putting on and removing protective equipment like a face mask

Clean your hands after these actions:

Coughing, sneezing, or blowing your nose
Touching another person’s hands or touching an animal or pet
Handling garbage

Touching frequently touched areas (doorknobs) or contaminated items (dirty laundry or dishes).

How to Wash Hands with Soap and Water

Wet hands and apply soap.
Rub hands for at least 20 seconds. Scrub all surfaces.
Rinse hands.
Dry hands with a clean cloth or paper towel. If in a public place, use the paper towel to turn off the faucet. Then, throw in the trash.

*When helping a child, wash their hands first, and then your own.

How to Clean Hands with Hand Sanitizer

Use hand sanitizer if soap and water are not available and if your hands do not look dirty. To be effective, hand sanitizer must have at least 60% alcohol content.
Apply hand sanitizer to both hands.
Rub hands covering all surfaces until dry. If your hands dry before 10 seconds you did not use enough. Apply more and repeat.

*Although not as effective as washing one’s hands with soap and water or using hand sanitizer, pre-moistened cleansing towelettes with at least 60% alcohol content can be an alternative.

Germs can live on surfaces. Cleaning with soap and water is usually enough. However, you should disinfect your bathroom and kitchen regularly. Disinfect other areas if someone in the house is ill. You can use an EPA certified disinfectant (look for the EPA registration number on the label) or a bleach solution.

If you are sick, the air that comes out of your mouth when you cough or sneeze may contain germs. Someone close by can breathe in your air, or touch a surface contaminated with your germs, and become ill. Cough or sneeze into a tissue or your shirt sleeve-not into your hands. Remember to throw away the tissue and wash your hands. You can wear a face mask when you are sick with a cough or sneezing illness. Learn how to put on and remove a face mask.

Avoid sharing personal items that can’t be disinfected, like toothbrushes and razors, or sharing towels between washes. Needles should never be shared, should only be used once, and then thrown away properly.

Vaccines can prevent many infectious diseases. You should get some vaccinations in childhood, some as an adult, and some for special situations like pregnancy and travel. Make sure you and your family are up-to-date on your vaccinations. If your regular doctor does not offer the vaccine you need, visit the Adult Immunization and Travel Clinic.

You and your pets should avoid touching wild animals which can carry germs that cause infectious diseases. If you are bitten, talk to your doctor. Make sure that your pet’s vaccinations are up-to-date.

When you are sick, stay home and rest. You will get well sooner, and will not spread germs.