| Orange County New York |
My Solutions |
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Jails
As the county’s public health official, it is necessary to identify the reasons why particular zip codes in Orange County have such high rates. According to my research, I’ve found that the zip codes with the highest rates are the home of facilities including prisons, jails, homeless shelters, and mental health institutions. For example, I mentioned in "Statistics" that Otisville currently has the highest rate because it is the home of a male federal prison. Since the majority of inmates represent poor demographics within society, it is in fact acceptable to link their vulnerability to HIV with their behavior and activity before prison. For instance, Ronald L. Braithwaite and Kimberly Arriola argue that “US prisons inmates are disproportionately indigent young men of color. These individuals are severely affected by HIV/AIDS, largely owing to the high-risk behavior that they engage in prior to incarceration.” (1). Although most of these HIV/AIDS infections occurred prior to incarceration, some scholars argue that health officials need to address issues within the prison such as safe sex practices. However most of these incarcerated individuals are not Orange County Residents; therefore they return to communities outside the county when they’ve finished serving their sentence. During the inmates’ prison sentence, the inmate’s HIV/AIDS disease actually never spread among the outside county residents because of the lack of outside contact. These zip codes’ rates truly do not represent the county because the Census Bureau counts prisoners according to their place of incarceration and not their actual residence. (Census Bureau). Unfortunately, since the Orange County Government has already stopped funding for their HIV/AIDS prevention two years ago, money is definitely an issue. Furthermore, as Orange County’s health official I would have to choose, who receives immediate care. Plenty of work can be done just within the prisons and institutions of Orange County, which would probably lessen the numbers for some zip codes, but it wouldn’t help the actual residents of my county. My job as public health official is to protect the residence of Orange County by preventing new HIV positive cases in the county; therefore at first I must concentrate on the individuals within the Orange County community. Although it is important to address the issues of prevention and treatment in these zip codes that house facilities, I think the zip codes that have high rates based on Orange County residents, such as Middletown and Newburgh, should be addressed. Orange County Towns with Both High AIDS rates and facilities Chester: Camp LaGaurdia Otisville: Federal Prison Goshen: Orange County Jail Warwick: New York Department of Correctional Facilities New Hampton: Mid Hudson Psychiatric Ward
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