Exam 1 Flashcards
Health
A state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being. Physical, psychological, and social.
Hippocrates
Father of modern medicine who rejected ancient focus on mysticism and superstition. Came up with humoral theory: mental illness due to imbalance of four humors.
Health Psychology
The application of psychological principles and research to the enhancement of health and prevention and treatment of illness. Its concerns include social conditions, biological factors, and even personality traits.
Health Disparities
Preventable differences in the burden of disease, in jury, violence, or opportunities to achieve optimal health that are experienced by socially disadvantaged populations.
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)
A new federal law aimed at reducing the number of people in the US who don’t have health insurance, as well as lowering the costs of healthcare.
Trephination
An ancient medical intervention in which a hole was drilled into the human skull, presumably to allow “evil spirits” to escape.
Humoral Theory
A concept proposed by Hippocrates that considered wellness a state of perfect equilibrium among four basic body fluids (humors). Sickness was believed to be the result of disturbances in the balance of humors.
Epidemic
Literally meaning “among the people”; an epidemic disease is one that spreads rapidly among many individuals in a community at the same time. A pandemic disease affects people over a large geographical area.
Mind-Body Dualism
The philosophical viewpoint that mind and body are separate entities that don’t interact.
Anatomical Theory
The theory that the origins of specific diseases are found in the internal organs, musculature, and skeletal system of the human body.
Cellular Theory
Formulated in the 19th century, the theory that disease is the result of abnormalities in body cells.
Germ Theory
The theory that disease is caused by viruses, bacteria, and other microorganisms that invade body cells.
Biomedical Model
The dominant view of the 20th century medicine that maintains illness always as a physical cause.
Psychosomatic Medicine
An outdated branch of medicine that focused on the diagnosis and treatment of physical diseases caused by faulty psychological processes.
Behavioral Medicine
An interdisciplinary field that integrates behavioral and biomedical science in preventing, diagnosing, and treating illness.
Etiology
The scientific study of the causes or origins of specific diseases.
Genomics
The study of structure, function, and mapping of the genetic material of organisms.
Epigenetic
The effects of environmental forces on how genes are expressed.
Life-Course Perspective
Theoretical perspective that focuses on age-related aspects of health and illness.
Subjective Well-Being
The cognitive and emotional evaluation of a person’s life.
Birth Cohort
A group of people who, because they were born at about the same times, experience similar historical and social conditions.
Social Culture Perspective
The viewpoint that it’s impossible to understand a person fully without understanding his/her culture and ethnic identity.
Gender Perspective
A focus on the study of gender-specific health behaviors, problems, and barriers to healthcare.
Immigrant Paradox
The finding that, although low socioeconomic status usually predicts poor health; this is not true for Hispanics and other ethnic groups in the US.
Ecological-Systems Approach
The viewpoint that nature is best understood as a hierarchy of systems, in which each system is simultaneously composed of smaller subsystems and larger, interrelated systems.
Positive Health
The scientific study of health assets, which are factors that produce longer life, reduce illness, and increase overall well-being.
Health Literacy
The ability to understand health info and use it to make good decisions about one’s health.
Massification
The transformation of a product or service that was once only available to the wealthy such that it becomes accessible to everyone. Applied to education and health, it’s the idea that college can benefit everyone.
Biopsychosocial Model
The viewpoint that health and other behaviors are determined by the interactions of biological factors (anything physical happening in the brain or body), psychological processes, social influences, and behaviors.
Belief Bias
A form of faulty reasoning in which our expectations prevent us from seeing alternative explanations for our observations.
Epidemiology
The scientific study of the frequency, distribution, and causes of a particular disease or other health outcome in a population.
Descriptive Study
A research method in which researchers observe and record in-depth participants’ behavior, often forming hypotheses that are later tested more systematically; includes case studies, interviews and surveys, and naturalistic observational studies.
Case Study
A descriptive study in which one person is studied in depth in the hope of revealing general principles.
Survey
A questionnaire used to ascertain the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of a group of people.
Observational Study
A non-experimental research method in which a researcher observes and records the behavior of a research participant. Detect naturally occurring relations among variables (correlations) and enables predictions.
Correlation Coefficient
A statistical measure of the strength and direction of the relationship between two variables, and thus of how well one predicts the other. Direction is shown by + or -, stength is the #, closer to 1 is stronger.
Scatterplot
A graphed cluster of data points, each of which represents the values of two variables in a descriptive study.
Statistical Literacy
The ability to read and interpret statistics and to think critically about arguments that use statistics as evidence.
Independent Variable
The factor in an experiment that an experimenter manipulates; the variable whose effect is being studied.
Dependent Variable
The behavior or mental process in an experiment that may change in response to manipulations of the IV; the variable that is being measured.
Random Assignment
Assigning research participants to groups by chance, thus minimizing preexisting differences among the groups.
Expectancy Effects
A form of bias in which the outcome of a study is influenced either by the researcher’s expectations or by the participants’ expectations.
Double-Blind Study
A technique designed to prevent observer and participant expectancy effects in which neither the researcher nor the participants know the true purpose of the study or which participants have each condition.
Quasi-Experiment
A study comparing two groups that differ naturally on a specific variable of interest at the outset of the study. Used when the variable cannot be manipulated or randomly assign participants to groups.
Cross-Sectional Study
A study comparing representative groups of people of various ages on a particular DV.
Longitudinal Study
A study in which a single group of people are observed over a long span of time. Time consuming, expensive to conduct, and results can be skewed bc people have dropped out.
Heritability
The amount of variation in a trait among individuals that can be attributed to genes.
Morbidity
As a measure of health, the number of cases of a specific illness, injury, or disability in a given group of people at a given time.
Mortality
As a measure of health, the number of deaths due to a specific cause in a given group at a given time.
Incidence
The number of new cases of a disease or condition that occur in a specific population within a defined time interval.
Prevalence
The total number of diagnosed cases of a disease/condition that exist at a given time.
Etiology
The scientific study of the causes or origins of specific diseases.
Retrospective Study
A backward-looking study in which a group of people who have a certain disease/condition are compared to a group of people who are free of the disease/condition, for the purpose of identifying background risk factors that may have contributed to the disease/condition.
