Lecture 2 Public Health Flashcards
To revise the lecture and prepare for the exam.
Define public health
“The science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health through organised efforts of society.” Acheson Report, 1988
What are the three domains of public health in the UK?
Health Protection
- For the population. i.e infectious disease control.
Health Improvement
- what we can do to improve the health of the population
- This includes public awareness, establishing and understanding social determinants of heath, reducing inequalities, improving education, adressing housing and unemployment etc.
Health Care Service Delivery
- High quality health care services
- evidence informed practice
- value based practice
- addressing ineffectiveness, efficiency and equity.
Know what they are, come back to examples.
What is primary, secondary, and tertiary in relation to ‘Levels of prevention’
Primary - Banning smoking, immunisation
Secondary - Early detection and treatment of disease or modifying risk factors like screening, statins for high cholesterol, testing for lynch syndrome.
Tertiary - Reducing long term impacts (mortality, morbidity) once disease is established like foot care for diabetics.
True or false: Public health tends to focus on entire populations instead of individual patients.
True
True of false: Public health does not facilitate or promote healthy environments and populations.
False
How does climate change drive health in relation to air pollution
Climate change can increase the concentration of particulate matter, ozone, and other air pollutants, contributing to respiratory problems, such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
How does malaria relate to climate change?
Rise in vector-borne (ticks, mosquitos, fleas) diseases:
Warmer climate makes the environment:
- Moore inviting for vectors
- Produces better breeding opportunities and conditions
- Therefore increasing the number of vectors.
Deforrestation
- increases infectious diseases.
- Disrupts pathogen and host environments.
- Increases disease vectors in forct and urban areas.
- change in temp and rainfall can improve pathogen survival, reproduction and human infection.
Ticks in california ar causing lyme disease. West Nile Virus will double
Heating can also kill off organisms and decrease disease but there are more increases than there are decreases.
What climate related factors influence Displacement and migration
The number of people displaced by climate-related disasters increased from 14 million in 2008 to 25 million in 2018. This includes flooding, wild fires, storms, hurricanes, floods, prolonged droughts.
How does climate change relate to waterborne diseases
Climate change fuels waterborne diseases through:
Altered water availability: Floods, droughts, and contamination.
Increased temperatures: Boost pathogen growth.
Vector changes: Mosquitoes and other vectors expand their range and activity.
Infrastructure strain:Overwhelms water treatment systems and impacts human behaviour.
how does climate change affect Allergies and asthma?
Worsens Allergies - Higher CO2 & warmer temps = more pollen, longer allergy seasons, stronger allergens.
Exacerbates Asthma - Increased air pollution (smog, wildfires), more extreme weather events (floods, storms) trigger asthma attacks.
How does climate change relate to Food and nutrition security?
Climate change threatens food and nutrition security by reducing agricultural yields, disrupting food supply chains, increasing pest and disease risks, causing water scarcity, diminishing nutritional quality, and destabilizing economies.
How does climate change affect maternal and child health?
Heat Stress - Preterm birth, low birth weight, dehydration.
Air Pollution - Respiratory issues, pregnancy complications.
Extreme Weather - Disrupted healthcare, malnutrition, infectious diseases.
Food & Water - Malnutrition, dehydration, disease spread.
Infectious Diseases - Expanded disease ranges (malaria, Zika).
Mental Health - Stress, anxiety, impacting child development.
How does climate change affect Mental Health?
Climate change can worsen mental health through:
Stress & Anxiety - Worrying about the future, extreme weather.
Trauma - Experiencing/witnessing climate disasters.
Grief - Losing loved ones, places, species.
Eco-anxiety - Feeling helpless about environmental destruction.
How does climate change affect Infectious diseases?
Warmer Temperatures - Increase mosquito, tick, and other vector populations, spreading diseases like malaria, Zika, and Lyme.
More Extreme Weather - Enhances transmission of waterborne diseases like cholera, typhoid, and E. coli.
Changing Rain Patterns - Disrupt water sources, creating ideal environments for disease-carrying insects and rodents.
Droughts - Increase human-to-human transmission of diseases like influenza and tuberculosis.
Increased Migrant Flow - Facilitates the spread of infectious diseases between regions.
Define and explain “determinants of health?”
These are factors that influence health. These can include socioeconomic, environment, commercial.
What are upstream determinations
Fundamental, root-cause social, economic, & environmental factors shaping health inequities and outcomes before problems arise.
Key Aspects
Focus - System-level, prevention-oriented, address.
Examples: Poverty, education, housing, discrimination, environmental hazards, policy.
Goal: Reduce health disparities & improve population health via structural changes.
What are the three priority/target area’s for public health
Biomedical - HIV/AIDS, cancers, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, common mental disorders.
Behavioural - smoking, diet and nutrition, exercise, substance abuse, stress management, sexual behaviour, hand hygiene.
Socio-environmental - Poverty, unemployment, housing, social isolation, air pollution, hazardous working conditions.
What is the ‘Nuffield Ladder of interventions?’
A framework that ranks the strength and effectiveness of interventions to improve health or address a problem, from the least to the most intrusive.
Eliminate choice - Seat belts
Restrict choice - Smoking ban
Guide choices through disincentives - sugar tax
Guide choices through incentives - No road tax on electric cars.
Guide choices through changing default policy - Serving salads in fast food.
Enable choice - healthy food displays.
Provide information - calorie information on menu’s.
Do nothing/simply monitor the situations -Bike helmets.
What data does public health use to make health decisions?
Morbiduty and mortality stats
Census data
health care data like hosp. admissions
Fingertips, WHO, ONS
Bespoke surverys, physical measurements, accelorometer data, saliva/blood tests, genotypes and mendelian randomisation, qualitative data
What are health inequalities?
Variations in in health between population groups resulting from a variety of social and economic processes that are unequally distributed within or between populations.
