Chapter 2

Question 1

What is health status?

Answer 1

• An individual or population’s overall health

- Involves life expectancy, amount of disability and levels of disease risk factors

Question 2

What are health indicators?

Answer 2

• Used to measure and compare health status
• E.g. life expectancy, mortality, morbidity, self-assessed health status, burden of disease

BSLMM

Question 3

What are self-assessed health status?

Answer 3

One’s own perception of own health and wellbeing at a given point in time

Question 4

What is life expectancy?

Answer 4

Number of years of life, on average, remaining to an individual at a particular age if death rates do not change

Question 5

Why is life expectancy so important?

Answer 5

• Useful for comparing different countries and population groups
• Help assist governments and non-government organisations to identify areas for potential improvement.

Question 6

What are some disadvantages of using life expectancy as a health indicator?

Answer 6

does not provide information on the health issues facing a country or population groups, such as the leading causes of death or emerging diseases. Although it is an important health status indicator, life expectancy doesn’t give any indication of the quality of life being experienced; it is based purely on the quantity, or length, of life

Question 7

What are some disadvantages of using life expectancy as a health indicator?

Answer 7

• No info on health issues faced by country or population groups
• E.g Leading cause of death, emerging diseases
• No indication of quality of life being experienced as it’s based purely on quantity

Question 8

What is HALE

Answer 8

• Stands for health-adjusted life expectancy
• Time lived in full health, without the health consequences of disease or injury
• Number of years one expected to live without reduced functioning (including decreased mobility and the decline in the functioning of body systems) due to ill health,
• Indicator of both quantity and quality of life.

Question 9

What is mortality?

Answer 9

Number of deaths in a population in a given period (usually 12 months)

Question 10

What is mortality rate?

Answer 10

Number of deaths, usually expressed per 1000 or 100,000 people in a 12-month period

Question 11

Benefits of using mortality data

Answer 11

• Allows tends in deaths to be identified
• Trends help gov and organisations in developing and funding strategies that help reduce mortality rates from leading causes of death
• Help identity leading causes of death
• Trends help determine success of current interventions (e.g policies, campaigns)
• Allow predictions to be made about future so relevant interventions made to improve health status.

Question 12

Others forms of mortality data

Answer 12

• Infant mortality rate
• under-five mortality rate
• maternal mortality ratio

Question 13

What is Infant mortality rate

Answer 13

• Measures rate infant deaths before first birthday

- Usually expressed per 1000 live births

Question 14

why is measuring Infant mortality rate so important?

Answer 14

• Indicate h + w of population and social and economic resources available.
• Reflect the ability of society to provide resources required to sustain human life.
• Infants and children rely on others to meet needs for food, water, healthcare. Thus, often have underdeveloped immune and other body systems –> more susceptible to premature mortality.

Question 15

Factors that helped improves Under-five mortality rate

Answer 15

• More awareness of risk factors for illness and injury
• National vaccination programs
• Improved health services and technology

Question 16

What is Maternal mortality rate

Answer 16

• Death of a mother during pregnancy, childbirth or within six weeks of delivery
• Usually measured per 100 000 women who give birth or per 100 000 live births

Question 17

What is morbidity?

Answer 17

• Ill health in an individual and levels of ill health within a population
• Expressed through incidence and prevalence

Question 18

What it incidence?

Answer 18

• Number/rate of new cases of a disease/condition in a population during given period
• E.g New COVID cases in 24 hours

Question 19

What it prevalence?

Answer 19

• Total number/proportion of cases of disease/condition present in population at given time
• E.g total COVID cases in Australia

Question 20

What is Burden of Disease

Answer 20

• Measures impact of diseases and injuries, mainly gap between current health status and ideal situation where one lives to an old age free of disease and disability
• Takes into account of mortality and morbidity

Question 21

What is Burden of Disease measured in?

Answer 21

• Disability-adjusted life year (DALY)

Question 22

What is DALY?

Answer 22

• 1 DALY = 1 year of healthy life lost, due to illness and/or death
• DALY = YLL + YLD

Question 23

What is YLL

Answer 23

• Measure of how many years of expected life are lost due to premature death
• Younger when die from condition = greater YLL added for that condition

Question 24

Example of YLL

Answer 24

• Person dies from cancer at 60, and life expectancy for 60-year-old is 85, then 25 years of life have been lost
• Thus, YLL is 25

Question 25

What is YLD?

Answer 25

Measure of how many healthy years of life are lost due to disease, injury or disability