5.1 Revision Flashcards
What are the 3 domains of public health?
Health protection - Ensuring that the risks to health from communicable diseases and/or environmental hazards are minimised.
Health improvement - Preventing ill health and promoting wellbeing by commissioning and providing services that fit with the needs of our population
Healthcare public health - Making sure we have the right health services in place for the population and that these are effective and accessible to all those who need them
Give some examples of health protection in maternal and child health
• Good infection control: sanitation and hygiene during delivery to prevent infections (in mothers and infants)
• Controlling communicable diseases: prevention of vertical
transmission of blood-borne diseases e.g. HIV
• Control of environmental hazards, such as ionising radiation,
heavy metals, which can be harmful in pregnancy…
Give some examples of health improvement in maternal and child health
• Family planning and contraception
• Screening for foetal abnormalities, e.g. ultrasound scans
• Folic acid for the prevention of neural tube defects
• Behaviour and lifestyle changes: e.g. stopping smoking,
alcohol and substance misuse, improving physical exercise
Some measures discussed in childhood:
• Weight management programmes
• Oral health promotion (brush4life)
• Free school meals
Give an example of healthcare public health in maternal and child health
Health needs assessment to improve access to mental health care in vulnerable young people at risk of offending
What are the 4 main categories of maternal health care?
Family planning
Pre-conception
Antenatal
Postnatal
What is the biggest maternal mortality cause in the UK?
Heart disease
What are the top 4 priorities concerning children’s health?
Exercise and hobbies
Food and drink
Healthy living
Emotional and mental health
Name some of the things that relate to childhood mental health illness?
Lower-income household Lack of support adversity parental mental illness child physical illness self-harm and suicide risky behaviours being bullied / bullying, special educational needs exclusion from education crime (victim / perpetrator)
What associations are highlighted in the Health Needs Assessment’ in vulnerable population Youth Offenders?
Complex associations between offending, mental health and:
• education, employment, and training; substance misuse…
• interactions with justice system predicts later mental illness
• Need equitable and accessible services: those with greatest need not always referred to mental health services in a timely way
What are the 2 broad categories of epidemiological studies?
Observational studies
Experimental studies
What are examples of experimental studies?
Trials
What are the 4 main examples of observational studies?
Ecological studies
Cross-sectional studies
Case-control studies
Cohort studies
What is a cross sectional study?
A study thats just happening in the current time. Just a snapshot in the present time, no longitudinal aspect.
Recruit a sample of the population and see who has the exposure and see who has the outcome. Both are measured at the same time
What are the disadvantages of a cross-sectional study?
Prone to various biases (selection bias) and confounding
Hard to say if exposure preceded disease (problem of reverse causation)
What are the 2 broad categories of bias?
Information bias
Selection bias
What is information bias?
Bias that arises from systematic differences in collection, recall, recording or handling of information used in a study.
Give some examples of information biases?
Recall bias
Observer bias
What is selection bias?
Occurs when individuals or groups in a study differ systematically from the population of interest leading to a systematic error in an association or outcome
Give an example of selection biases
Loss-to-follow bias Attrition bias Allocation bias Non-response bias Sampling bias
What is confounding?
The distortion of the effect of an exposure on an outcome because of the association of the exposure and outcome with another factor
What methods can be used to identify if there is confounding factors?
- Stratify by suspected compounding factor
- Multi variable methods estimate the association between an exposure and an outcome after adjusting for, or taking into account, the impact of one or more confounding factors
What is reverse causation?
When it is unclear which factor is the exposure and which is the outcome. Can happen during cross-sectional study (e.g. depression and lack of exercise)
What is a case-control study?
Recruit group of people with the outcome of interest to be the cases. Then separately go out and find people who are very similar to our cases in almost every way except for the fact that they do not have the certain outcome you looked for in the cases. Want the control group to be comparable to the case group.
Then look back in time and compare if they were previously exposed in the past. Can then calculate the association between disease and exposure
When are case-control studies really useful?
Good for rare diseases
Good for diseases that take a long time to develop
What are the disadvantages of case-control studies?
Prone to recall bias
Prone to selection bias
Cannot estimate how common a disease is
What is a cohort study?
Recruit sample of interest from the population, based on exposure status
Should all be disease free and comparable
Classify people into exposed and unexposed groups
After time, in the future record the number of people who have went on to develop the disease or had not.
Can be prospective or retrospective
What is a prospective cohort study?
Recruit the random sample of people before we know whom has exposure. Then measure exposure
What is a retrospective cohort study?
Work in the present day. Recruit a population of people who had recorded exposure in the past and then see who went on to get the outcome over time