Health begins at home --- for you and others

The recent outbreak of mumps in the Midwest (1,150 confirmed cases as of April 19, 2006, and several hospitalizations) has captured the attention of public health officials and physicians around the United States.

Concern over the spread of this highly infectious illness highlights the need for strong community-based health initiatives related to treatment and prevention. It also underscores our individual responsibility toward each other.

Public health, in many ways, begins at home.

We've all been in the situation where co-workers, fellow churchgoers or passengers on an airplane have been ill. Haven't we avoided them? Not used the same telephone? Not shaken their hands at the Sign of Peace? Asked to be moved to another seat in another row --- far away?

Taking precautions for our own health shows respect for the bodies we've been given, and the reverse is just as true. As we think of what we can do to feel better if we are sick, do we consider how we can prevent others from becoming ill too?

Do we cancel a trip? Stay home from work or school? Decline a social invitation?

And what about children? Do we teach them the importance of allowing the body to heal at home? Of not coughing or sneezing on someone else? Of washing their hands well and often?

Do we give ourselves and our children a solid health advantage through vaccinations and other preventive health care?

At a recent telephone news conference, Dr. Julie Gerberding of the Centers for Disease Control stressed two actions necessary to contain the spread of mumps. Both apply to the virus in question, as well as to other contagious illnesses, and both involve personal decisions: vaccination and isolation.

As simple as these imperatives might seem, to some people they are controversial.

Today, many children go without mumps vaccines, either through lack of preventive health care or through parental decisions not to vaccinate. Community-wide vaccination programs have and can continue to address the vaccine's lack of availability. Parental decisions, however, are another matter.

Whether made because of fear of side effects or other personal reasons, not vaccinating a child can result in illness. That illness might be mild or severe. It could, in rare cases, result in death. The illness also might be highly contagious.

Perhaps there are sound medical reasons not to vaccinate certain individuals, but because it has childhood and societal repercussions, the home-based decision not to vaccinate needs to be made within the context of care for community and those too young to make such decisions themselves.

What about isolation?

Someone who has caught mumps is contagious three days before the onset of symptoms and nine days afterward. It's not possible intuitively to know that someone is coming down with mumps. But once they exhibit symptoms, people with mumps should, according to Gerberding, curtail contact with uninfected people for the full nine days.

Taking that long a break from daily responsibilities can seem terribly inconvenient, even impossible. Yet it serves two vital purposes: It allows the patient to heal, and it protects others from catching the illness.

As controversial as vaccination and isolation can be, the relevance from a Catholic standpoint is clear:

---Living our faith means that we love one another as Christ loved us.

---Taking precautions to prevent illness shows our love. So does isolating ourselves if we fall ill.

---By considering that what we do at home affects us and the world around us, we make our faith life more caring, more holy and more linked to the lives of our brothers and sisters far and near.

Maureen Pratt is a Los Angeles Catholic author who focuses on spirituality and health topics. Her website is www.maureenpratt.com.