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Re‐Evaluating Current Public Health Policy: Alternative Public Health Nursing Approaches to Sexually Transmitted Infection Testing for Teens and Males who Have Sex with Males
Author(s) -
O'Byrne Patrick,
Holmes Dave
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
public health nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.471
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1525-1446
pISSN - 0737-1209
DOI - 10.1111/j.0737-1209.2005.220608.x
Subject(s) - public health , health promotion , health care , medicine , public health nursing , health policy , reproductive health , population , environmental health , nursing , family medicine , gerontology , political science , law
Objective:Due to a recent increase in the rates of reportable sexually transmitted infections (STI) across Canada, and the movement of public health nursing initiatives to a health promotion/illness prevention model, this paper proposes alternative strategies to current public health initiatives to encourage individuals who are labelled as at‐risk by public health discourses, such as teens and males who have sex with males (MSM), to undertake preventative screening. Theoretical Design: To undertake this task, we approached Health Canada's (2002) determinants of health utilizing Lupton's (1995) post‐structuralist work on public health to suggest that for some members of these groups, health is not an imperative. Conclusions: As such, we propose that increasing anonymous testing and its advertisement would provide one means of providing population‐sensitive care and could thus increase the screening rates of individuals within groups who reject the public health “healthy” disquisition.