Global Health: Non-infectious disease (CVD)

Question 1

What three factors make up epidemiological transition?

Answer 1

Time, person and place

Question 2

Why is cardiovascular disease prevalence increasing?

Answer 2

Smoking and diet

Question 3

Why might their be reduced infectious disease prevalence?

Answer 3

Better hygiene

Question 4

What is one characteristic that can influence CHD?

Answer 4

Age, sex (lower in women), ethnicity (higher in afro-caribbean by 2000)

Question 5

How is CVD distributed globally?

Answer 5

In America 1/3 of deaths due to CVD, in Africa it was 10% and Europe it was 60% (2010)

Question 6

How can we determine whether CVD is due to genetics or environmental influence?

Answer 6

A suitable trial for this would to be to study migrants with the same ancestry/ethnic background

Question 7

What are the established risk factors for CHD?

Answer 7

blood cholesterol, high BP, smoking, body weight and reduced physical activity

Question 8

Why does blood pressure increase risk in ‘gradiential way’?

Answer 8

For every unit increase in blood pressure/ cholesterol level, the level of CHD increases

Question 9

Describe the global trend in CVD

Answer 9

Deaths from CVD are predicted to be relatively stable in high income countries from 2004-2030, but these rates are predicted to increase for middle and low-income countries (the same trend follows cancer)

Question 10

After what age does the number of deaths from CVD usually decrease and why

Answer 10

80 because most people die after this age

Question 11

Which ethnicity has higher CVD rates?

Answer 11

Afro-caribbeans

Question 12

How common is river blindness?

Answer 12

Not very common, going towards elimination (?)

Question 13

Which 2 drugs are used to treat helminth infections?

Answer 13

Albendazole and Mebendazole

Question 14

What drug is used to treat onto and LF?

Answer 14

Mectizan

Question 15

Roughly how many deaths caused by schistosomiasis in Africa and how many infected individuals?

Answer 15

250 000 deaths and 250 million infected (?)

Question 16

What is the vector of onchocerciasis?

Answer 16

Blackfly

Question 17

What is the vector of LF?

Answer 17

Mosquitoes

Question 18

Which countries has increasing rates of CHD deaths?

Answer 18

East Europe

Question 19

Why is serum cholesterol not a good indicator for CVD?

Answer 19

poor ability to discriminate between cases and non-cases of heart disease (this is because not only Cholesterol levels cause CHD as this is a multifactorial disease)

Question 20

What can cross sectional studies not do?

Answer 20

Find association between putative risk and outcome

Question 21

Does QOF use patient feedback on social media?

Answer 21

No

Question 22

Why is cervical cancer screening carries out in women aged 25 and above?

Answer 22

Cervical abnormalities in younger women do no always progress to cancer

Question 23

Why do children need to be dewormed?

Answer 23

Worms cause malnutrition and can cause stunted growth

Question 24

What is PICO?

Answer 24

The PICO process is a technique used in evidence based practice to frame and answer a clinical or health care related question.The PICO framework is also used to develop literature search strategies. The PICO acronym stands for population/ patients, intervention, control and outcome.

Question 25

Why do MA give more weight to larger studies than smaller studies?

Answer 25

Larger studies have more accurate effect estimate than smaller studies

Question 26

What is lead time bias?

Answer 26

Lead time is the length of time between the detection of a disease and its usual diagnosis. Diagnosing a disease earlier does not automatically make patients live longer — they merely live for a longer time with the disease ‘label’. Put another way, survival appears longer because the ‘disease clock’ starts earlier.