#11 Individual vs group health Flashcards
There are tensions that arise from conflicts between individual health and population health. List two ways individual medical decisions have significant population consequences (2 points).
herd immunity is a public good and antibiotic use
What is a vaccine (1 point)? What are four types of vaccines? (4 points).
Vaccine: is a biological preparation that contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism, which improves immunity to a particular disease
1. - Live attenuated vaccines are made of weaker and tamer version of live pathogen
2. - Inactive vaccines where pathogens are killed
3. - Subunit vaccine only made from the antigen of the pathogen to trigger an immune response
4. - DNA vaccines where they isolate the DNA that is needed to make the specific types of antigens the body need to elicit an immune response.
Herd immunity is a public good. Explain. Describe one larger-scale consequence if a large percentage of individuals choose not to vaccinate? What is one argument offer by some people for not vaccinating? (3 points)
Herd immunity: when the proportion of immune people is high enough the disease can no longer spread through the population
Herd immunity is a public good because the effects of the cooperators and the free riders effects the good of the whole public so people individual actions affect the public outcome.
One consequence of a large group not vaccinating is losing herd immunity which leads to more cases of the disease. Those who suffer the most from people not getting vaccinated are infants younger than 6 to 12 months old, who are too young to be vaccinated.
Some people don’t vaccinate because they misunderstand or don’t believe the science or that it causes autism.
When a physician treats a bacterial infection, the patient receives immediate benefits in most cases. However, describe one externalized cost of this treatment? (1 point) .Explain the difference between an individuals’ immediate benefit from treatment at an individual level and the larger costs of treatment on a population level (3 points).
One externalized cost is global spread of antibiotic resistance to which millions of these individual decisions have contributed. Short term individual gain of antibiotic use are immediate, local, large and easy to understand where as the larger costs associated with antibiotic use on the population level are delayed, diffuse, and they add up to create a very large problem with serious consequences.
What is the Great Transition (1 point)? Describe how the Great Transition led to a decrease in the incidence of infectious diseases but led to an increase in the incidence of some complex diseases. In your answer, use specific examples of infectious and complex diseases (4 points).
The great transition is the industrial revolution which has been the biggest change since the agricultural revolution that involves great economic, technological, labor and medical changes.
Technology also improved public hygiene (e.g. modern sewage systems and clean water supplies that decreased the transmission of water-borne diseases) and Some technologies gave physicians new tools (e.g. vaccines to prevent many infectious diseases) and sterilization to reduce infections in hospital wards and operating rooms which both improved hygiene and medical advancements (vaccines and sterilization) lead to a decrease in infectious diseases.
But with this decrease in infectious disease and improved technology it led to increased longevity which meant more people got cancer and degenerative disease more. One degenerative disease is Alzheimer’s where the APOE4 gene may be advantageous early in development but detrimental later in life
The changes in childbearing is a striking feature of post–Great Transition fertility schedule. Describe these changes in childbearing in the post-Great Transition era (4 points).
Fertility rates increased in the early phases of industrial revolution due in part to improvements in nutrition, but they then reversed due to conscious limitation of family size
When many refuse vaccinations, what is one potential outcome (1 point
There is no herd immunity and the groups who cant get vaccinated like the young and old are most at risk for death and infection from the disease.
