Health Protection Flashcards
What 3 things does health protection include?
- Preventing + controlling infectious diseases
- Reducing the adverse effects of chemical, microbiological and radiological hazards e.g. pollution
- Preparing for potential or emerging threats e.g. bombs + terrorist attacks
Give examples of diseases that have emerged/re-emerged despite modernisations in society
TB HIV MRSA C. difficile Ebola Swine flu Zika virus
What kind of factors may encourage the emergence of these diseases?
- Societal events - war, migration
- Human behaviour - travel, diet
- Health care - new devices, transplants, immunosuppression
- Environmental change - deforestation, climate change
- Microbiological adaptation
Give examples of tools for control and investigation of these diseases
- Education about control e.g. washing hands
- Immunisation
- Surveillance + epidemiology - descriptive, analytical studies, mapping
- Environmental change e.g. improving hygiene in public places
- Law
When should medical practitioners notify Public Health England?
- Notifiable disease
- Infection that could harm human health
- Patient is contaminated with chemicals or radiation that could harm human health
- Patient has died by something that could have presented harm to human health
Define: outbreak
Two or more linked cases of a disease (time/place) or a single case of a rare disease
Define: epidemic
Serious outbreak in a single community, population or region
Define: pandemic
Epidemic spreading around the world affecting 100,000s people across many countries
Define: seasonal influenza
Every year - flu jab
Define: pandemic influenza
Change (mutation) in a flu virus to produce a new virus that can be transmitted easily between humans
Describe: managing the early staging of a pandemic
- Containment phase - identification + treatment of cases, contact tracing (family/airline passengers), large scale prophylaxis for the contacts
- Treatment phase - treat cases only, self diagnosis, national flu pandemic service
What is health economics?
It is the discipline of economics applied to health - it assumes resources are scarce and is about benefits + evaluating services.
It is concerned with how choices in health care should be made between competing needs for resources.
What are the 4 key concepts used in health economics uses?
- Opportunity cost - value of benefit which could be obtained from a resource
- Efficiency - maximising benefit for the resources used
2a) Technical efficiency - meeting a given objective at least cost
2b) Allocative efficiency - production that matches consumer demand - Marginal analysis - comparing the benefit from the next step (marginal benefit) with the cost of taking the next step (marginal cost)
- Equity - fairness or justice of the distributions of costs and benefits
What are the Millennium Development Goals (to be achieved by 2015)
- Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
- Achieve universal primary education
- Promote gender equality and empower women
- Reduce child mortality
- Improve maternal health
- Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria + other diseases
- Ensure environmental sustainability e.g. clean water
- Develop a global partnership for development
What are the features of international health?
- Focus of specific diseases and conditions
- Often in other countries - stresses more the differences between countries + the commonalities
- One-way flow of ideas for development
What are the features of global health?
- Focus on people across the whole planet rather than concerns of particular nations
- Recognises that health is determined by problems, issues, concerns that transcend national boundaries
Define: communicable disease
Any disease that is transmitted directly or indirectly to a person/from an infected person or animal through an intermediate animal, host, vector
Why are communicable diseases a global health issue?
They do not recognise international boundaries
They can emerge anywhere on the globe + spread quickly to other regions e.g. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), bird flu, swine flu
Define: incubation period
Point in time when person acquires infection to when person shows symptoms of disease
Define: latent period
Point in time when person acquires infection until it becomes infectious
Describe: health transition
Urbanisation/improve medical technology –> infectious disease mortality declines –> fertility declines –> population ages –> chronic + non-communicable diseases emerge
What part is the demographic transition?
Urbanisation/improve medical technology –> infectious disease mortality declines –> fertility declines
What part is the epidemiologic transition?
Population ages –> chronic + non-communicable diseases emerge
What are the 3 fundamental objectives of health systems?
- Improving health of population they serve
- Responding to people’s expectation
- Providing financial protection against the costs of ill-health
What are the 6 building blocks of the health system?
- Service delivery
- Financing
- Medical products + technologies
- Health information system
- Leadership + governance
- Health workforce
What are the 5 primary methods of funding health care systems?
- Direct or out-of-pocket payments
- General taxation
- Social health insurance
- Voluntary or private health insurance
- Donations or community health insurance
Give examples of worrying trends of healthcare systems
- Health systems that focus disproportionately on a narrow offer of specialised curative care e.g. new fancy drug to treat rare disease
- Health systems that are focused on short term results rather than long-term prevention
- Health systems where a hands-off approach to governance has allowed unregulated commercialisation of health to flourish
What is information governance?
How individuals and institutions ensure that personal information is dealt with legally, securely, efficiently + effectively to deliver best patient care.
