Final Exam Prep Flashcards
(48 cards)
This consists of laws, regulations, reporting mechanisms, and data collection as essential components of disease outbreak investigation. It is used to assess public health status, define public health priorities, plan public health programs, evaluate interventions and programs, and stimulate research.
Public health surveillance
Illness caused by an infectious agent or its toxins which spread through direct or indirect transmission.
Communicable disease
A type of epidemiology which focuses on person, place, and time variables to describe disease patterns.
Descriptive epidemiology
A type of epidemiology which examines complex relationships among the determinants of a disease. Determines why disease rates may be lower in one population compared to another.
Analytic epidemiology
A model developed to identify causative factors, transmission, and risk related to infectious disease. The three components are: environment, agent, and host.
Epidemiological triangle
A model reflecting complex interaction of factors which can increase or decrease the risk of disease.
Web of causality
The number of deaths in a given area or period, or from a particular cause.
Mortality rate
The proportion of patients with a particular disease during a given year per given unit of population.
Morbidity rate
The number of new cases or events in a population at risk during a specified time.
Incidence rate
The number of existing cases in a given population.
Proportion rate
What are the five characteristics of an infectious agent?
Infectivity Pathogenicity Virulence Toxicity Antigenicity
The ability of a disease to enter and multiply in a host.
Infectivity
The ability of a disease to produce a specific clinical reaction after the infection occurs.
Pathogenicity
The ability of a disease to produce a severe pathological reaction.
Virulence
The ability of a disease to produce a poisonous reaction.
Toxicity
The ability of a disease to produce an immunological response.
Antigenicity
The ability of a disease to penetrate and spread throughout a tissue.
Invasiveness
A species-determined, innate resistance to an infectious agent. Ex: Opossums rarely contract rabies.
Natural immunity
Resistance by a host, as a result of previous natural exposure to an infectious agent. Ex: Having measles once protects you from future infection.
Acquired immunity
The immunization of an individual by administration of an antigen. Characterized by the presence of an antibody produced in the individual host. Ex: Vaccination for childhood diseases.
Active immunization
The immunization through the transfer of a specific antibody from an immunized individual to a non-immunized individual. Often the immunity is fast acting but short lived. Ex: Antibody transfer through breast feeding or other preparation.
Passive immunity
Immunity of a group or community.
Herd immunity
What are the 5 modes of transmission?
Vertical Horizontal Indirect Vector-borne Airborne
When pathogens are transferred from parent to offspring in an egg or sperm, across the placenta, in breast milk, or in the birth canal. Ex: Syphilis and gonorrhea
Vertical transmission
