Measuring Health and Disease Flashcards
Why measure the health of a population?
find out how common a disease is (prevalence) and how many new cases occur (incidence)
identify longitudinal tends in a disease
Indentify differences in disease patterns between different population groups or locations
Service planning are the right services in the right places for the right people
Are interventions or policies to improve health working in an area?
What is Prevalence
How many people have a disease at any one point in time
What is incidence how do you calculate incidence rate
The number of NEW cases of a disease in a given period of time
No of new cases of a given time period /
person years at risk (tot pop at risk X time period)
What is the birth rate?
no of live births per 1000 of the population
What is fertility rate?
General fertility rate no of lives births per 1000 of population in females between 15-44years
Total the average number of children that a woman would bear if they experienced the age-specific fertility rates at that point in time.
What are the differences between birth and fertility rate?
Birth rate measure of whole population no age groups fertility rate is in a specific age group
Frailty rate determines birth rate but no the other way round
What is mortality rate?
Number of deaths from a disease in relation to.a population in a given period of time
How do you calculate infant mortality rate
no of deaths in children aged less than 1yr/ All live births X1000
What is crude mortality rate?
total no of deaths in 1 year/
total mid-year population
What is disease specific mortality rate?
no of deaths from a disease/
total mid year population X 1000
How can health status be measured?
Census Death certification health survey for England General lifestyle survey Hospital episode statistics GP research database
What is the census?
survey required to complete by law every 10 years
information on population demographics where they live how old economic status and employment
Whats death certification
Registering of death legal requirement since 1937
Must record what the person died of
how old they were
other factors that may have contributed to death e.g. fell down stairs broke hip surgery caught respiratory infection and died
What are hospital episode statistics
Give information of all admissions to NHS hospitals in England.
collects data on diagnoses and operations
age gender and ethnicity of people using healthcare services
time waited and date of admission
outcome discharge, care home death
General lifestyle survey?
similar to census
whole of GB information of demographics such as housing tenure access to vehicles employment education family information like marriage status cohabitation
