Health Across the Life Course Flashcards
What does epidemiology study?
The distribution of health and disease in population and the factors determining these distributions.
Study of association between _____ and _____
Reasoning about _____.
_______ measures for improving public health.
Exposures and outcomes
Causality
Preventive
Define life-course epidemiology.
“… the study of long term biological, behavioural, and psychological processes that link adult health and disease risk to physical or social exposures acting during gestation, childhood, adolescence, early adult life, or across the generations”.
What are the four main risk factors for chronic adult diseases?
Smoking, obesity, physical inactivity and alcohol
What is the main non-medical risk factor for chronic adult diseases?
Socio-economic status
How many % of deaths in industrialised countries are due to chronic adult diseases?
80-90%
What are the early biological risks?
Blood pressure and cholesterol levels in childhood
Overweight children
Life-long smoking, dietary and exercise habits (these are acquired in childhood and adolescence)
How does socioeconomic status relate to chronic disease?
Poverty, illness and poor early growth make individuals more susceptible to adult chronic diseases. Deprivation in childhood is important in determining health during the life course.
What is the Barker hypothesis?
“Intrauterine growth retardation, low birth weight, and premature birth have a causal relationship to the origins of hypertension, coronary heart disease, and non-insulin-dependent diabetes in adulthood.”
How is the descriptive epidemiology of stomach cancer explained?
A poor environment during infancy and childhood is associated with high infant mortality. This may explain the descriptive epidemiology of stomach cancer, because stomach cancer is influenced by infection with H pylori in childhood.
What are the four pathways FROM poor growth in utero/poor lung development/infant respiratory infections TO adult lung disease?
Biological
Predominantly social
Socio-biological
Biosocial
What is the biological path?
From poor growth in utero/poor lung development/infant resp infections –> childhood chest illness –> adult lung disease
What is the social path?
Poor childhood socioeconomic status –> poor growth in utero/poor lung development/infant resp infections AND poor educational attainment –> poor adult SES –> occupational hazards –> adult lung disease
What is the socio-biological path?
Air pollution, passive smoking and poor nutrition are linked to poor childhood SES (which links to the poor lung development) and also childhood chest illness, which causes adult lung disease.
What is the biosocial path?
The biosocial path links ait pollution, poor adult diet and smoking to adult lung disease DUE TO poor adult SES, due to childhood chest illness causing poor educational attainment.
