Midterm Flashcards
Healthy People 2020 Goal for Environmental Health
“Promote health for all through a healthy environment”
Principle Determinants of Health Worldwide (Three P’s)
Population
Pollution
Poverty
Three Factors of Population Growth
Fertility
Infant Mortality
Longevity
How many Earth’s to maintain current population size and consumption rates?
1.5 Earth’s
TFR (Total fertility rate)
The number children a woman has given birth to by the end of childbearing
Estimated natural population replacement rate
2.1 births per woman
Demographic transition
Alterations over time in a population’s fertility, mortality, and make-up
Five stages of demographic transition
Stage 1: High fertility and mortality rates (small population)
Stage 2: High fertility and decreasing mortality rates (increasing population
Stage 3: Decreasing fertility rates, more even distribution of population
Stage 4: Fertility continues to drop
Stage 5: Population slowly decreases
Carrying capacity
The population that an area will support without undergoing environmental deterioration (tends to limit population size)
Population crashes
Animal populations experience population crashes when population growth exceeds carrying capacity
Hippocrates (three points)
- Greek philosopher often referred to as the “father of medicine”
- Emphasized influence of the environment on people’s health and health status
- Promoted doctrine of maintaining equilibrium among the body’s four humors (blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm)
What did Ancient Romans do for environmental health?
Developed first infrastructure for maintaining public health (transport of water and sewage, heating devices for water and for rooms, communal baths)
Ramazzini (two points)
- Italian physician who was the founder of the fields of occupational medicine
- Highlighted the risks posed by hazardous chemicals, dusts, and metals used in the workplace
Public Health Act 1848
Clean water and control infectious disease
Walter Reed
Confirmed that yellow fever caused by mosquitoes rather than direct contact
Upton Sinclair
Food and Drug Act guy
Love Canal
Toxic waste burial
Fracking (what does it stand for, what is it, environmental consequences)
- Hydraulic fracturing
- Fracturing fluid pumped into well, causes rock surrounding pipe to crack
- Leads to groundwater contamination/air quality degradation + mini-earthquakes
Involved with design and installation of control systems/responsible for control of hazards that may affect workers/community
Industrial hygienist
Specializes in effects of toxic chemicals on the environment and living creatures
Toxicologist
Monitors and enforces government regulations
Environmental health inspector
Involved with cleanliness and safety of foods and beverages consumed by public
Food inspector/food safety specialist
Enforces various public health laws, sanitary codes, and regulations related to spread of disease by vectors
Vector control specialist
Ecological system
Theory that people encounter different environments which influence behavior
What is healthy People 2010/2020?
It is a 10-year agenda for improving the nations’ health
Boom-bust curve (population)
Boom in the population when it grows rapidly but it is followed by a bust when population falls back to minimal levels when carrying capacity is reached
What is environmental epidemiology?
The study of diseases and health conditions linked to environmental factors
Morbidity vs Mortality
Morbidity - Rate of illness in a population
Mortality - Rate of deaths from illness in a population
Two Classes of Epidemiological Studies (identify them and state the difference)
Descriptive: depiction of the occurrence of disease in populations according to classification by person, place, and time variables
Analytic: examines causal hypotheses regarding the association between exposures and health conditions
Prevalence vs Point prevalence (define difference, give formula)
Prevalence is the number of existing cases/deaths from disease at a designated period of time, point prevalence is the number of cases/deaths form disease at a particular point in time
Formula: number of ill persons at a point in time/Total number in group
Incidence vs incidence rate (defined and give formula)
Incidence is the occurrence of new disease/mortality in a defined period of observation
Formula for incidence rate: # of new cases over time period/total population at risk x multiplier
Cross-sectional studies
Observational, give snapshot of characteristics at single point in time, generally used to assess prevalence
Ecological studies
Study done at population levels, generally used in public health research and when data at individual level is unavailable
Case-control study
Retrospective studies done on those who already have disease compared to those who don’t
Cohort study
Study where individuals are followed over time to see who develops disease; groups exposed compared to non-exposed groups
Case-control study (Odds Ratio or Relative Risk)
Odds ratio
Cohort study (Odds Ratio or Relative Risk)
Relative Risk
Case-Control (issues, benefits)
Negatives: Often subject to recall bias
Positives: inexpensive, efficient, suitable for rare diseases with long latency periods
Cohort (issues, benefits)
Negatives: high selection bias, bad for studying rare diseases, expensive and inefficient
Positives: low recall bias, multiple outcomes can be studies simultaenously
Epidemiological triangle (host, vector, agent, environment)
Host: harbors the disease
Vector: spreads the disease
Agent: causes the disease
Environment
What is the criteria for causal association with diseases called?
Bradford Hill
Strength of association
Measured by relative risk (odds ratio)
Dose-response relationship
As dose increases, risk of disease also increases
Lack of temporal ambiguity
Exposure to factor must have occurred before disease developed
Biological plausibility
Coherence with current body of biological knowledge
Coherence of evidence
If a relationship is causal, findings expected to be consistent with other data
Specificity of association
When a certain exposure is associated with only one disease
