Module 2 Flashcards
What is a determinant?
Any event or characteristic that influences health outcomes
What is socioeconomic position?
The impact of social and economic factors on the individual or group’s standing in social structure
What categories does a measure of SEP have to fit?
It must be objective, meaningful and measurable
What are examples of SEP factors?
Income, education, occupation, housing, culture, services nearby, social capital. NEET
What do SEP factors do?
They: Quantify inequality levels within and between societies
Highlight changes to society
Highlight relationships between health and other factors
What needs to be remembered when measuring income?
Personal income Use absolute (reporting bias) or categorial measures
Household income
Equivalised, standardisation
How does income help measure health status?
Dose-response association with health
Cumulative effect
Can change over a short duration e.g. short term contracts
Has the greatest potential for change. Therefore it’s a great measure of socioeconomic position
How do we measure education levels?
It can be continuous variable (years in education)
Categorical variable (highest qualification).
Parents to person SEP comparisons
Cohort effects problems e.g. more people now study, women study, different countries have different education standards
How does education help measure health?
It corresponds with the person’s ability to respond to health messages and is easy to access.
How do we measure occupation?
Current or longest held job. It is transferable to the dependents of a head of household.
NZSEI groups jobs by potential income i.e. social class
How does occupation help measure health?
It’s closely related with income and reflects social standing, social mobility and affects stress levels and workplace hazards.
What is an odds ratio?
Yes / No for each group in the gate frame: (a/c) / (b/d).
What is health inequality?
Differences in health experience and outcomes of different populations due to factors such as SEP, gender etc (the social gradient).
What is health inequity?
Inequalities coming from injustices. It involves the distribution of resources being unreflective of health needs. It gives different groups unequal power.
What are the four reasons for reducing inequality?(Woodward and Kawachi)
- They are unfair
- They affect everyone
- Their reduction could be cost effective
- They are avoidable
What is social mobility?
People’s ability to move between social strata in a society. It can be intra or inter generational
What is equity of opportunity?
Everybody having the same chance of moving up the social ladder
How do you draw a lorenz curve?
Draw a 45 degree line on the axes and plot he cumulative share of wealth by share of population
What is the gini coefficient and how does it work?
It is the ratio between the observed vs. ideal equality. It is A/(A+B) where A = the area between the line and drawn curve, while B = the area under the drawn curve. A coefficient = 0 is perfectly equal, while 1 is perfectly unequal.
What are the three ways life events can interact to affect our long-term health and well-being?
- Cumulative (poverty trap)
- Multiplicative (IHD risk factors)
- Programming (foetal stimuli affecting later life)
What is the difference between population health and individual determinants?
Population determinants also involve the societal context
What are downstream interventions?
They operate at the micro level, such as treatment of patients and management of individuals.
What are upstream interventions?
They operate at the macro level: policies and international trade agreements
What are the 5 areas of the Dahlgren and Whitehead model?
Age, sex and genes Individual and lifestyle factors Social and Community factors Living/Working Conditions Socioeconomic, global and cultural factors
What are the subgroups of living/working conditions in the Dahlgren & Whitehead model?
Agriculture & food, Education, Work, Development, Sanitation, Healthcare, Housing
What are the three levels in the Dahlgren and Whitehead model?
The individual (genetics and lifestyle) The Community (social and community factors, living/working) The environment (cultural, global, socioeconomic)
What is a habitus?
An individual’s lifestyle, values, disposition and expectations
What is social capital?
Social networks between individuals which provide an inclusive environment
What is structure?
The social and physical environmental conditions and patterns influencing peoples’ choices and opportunities. (Operates in areas 3-5 of D-W model)
What is agency?
The ability of individuals to make free choices (L2-3 of D-W model).
How is maori health exemplified in NZ?
Many disparities in almost all areas of health.
What are the two types of intervention?
Structural (providing resources or services)
Social (changing ways of thinking and behavior)
How are ethnic disparities determined?
Differential access to health determinants and exposure, leading to differences in incidence
Differential access to care
Differences in care quality
What do minority groups tend to report of health care?
Less: feeling listened to time with the provider adequate explanations More: Unanswered questions dissatisfaction
What are the two ways in which minorities are disadvantaged?
Structurally (wealth and power distribution)
Socially (peoples’ expectations)
What was a result of the ToW?
- Land alienation -> disruption, power and alliance shifts, resource depletion, resentment
- Policy alienation
- Inferior Citizenship: Entrenched poverty and dependency, barriers to development, acceptance of inequality, resentment, and social breakdown (crime).
What does neighbourhood deprivation measure?
The relative position of a neighbourhood in society. It focuses on what a neighbourhood doesn’t have.
What are variables of deprivation?
Communication, income, employment, qualification, home ownership, support, space and transport.
What is NZDep used for and how should its conclusions be phrased?
Planning and allocation, research and advocacy. Should be “people in the most deprived neighbourhoods” NOT “the most deprived people”.
Where do upstream vs. downstream interventions sit on the Dahlgren and Whitehead model?
Upstream interventions tend to belong on the outermost arch of the DW model- the social, political and physical environment. Downstream tend to target the individual or lifestyle. However, interventions can take place at any level.
What are the different measures of inequities?
Relative (no units): - Relative risk (EGO/CGO) - External quotient (highest value/lowest value) Absolute (Units) - Absolute risk (EGO-CGO) - Range (Highest value- lowest value)
What are the external quotient and range used for?
Measuring the extent of a difference between different populations
What is the difference between guidelines and treatment?
Guidelines are more population health- they are upstream interventions.
Treatment is more clinical- they are downstream interventions.
Where do the 5 A’s fit in the DW model?
They are in the community section (L3)
What is the inverse care law?
The availability of good medical care tends to vary inversely with the needs of the population served.”
What needs to be considered when looking at who uses treatments?
What should the intervention statistics look like, considering who is most at risk for a dis-ease?
What can we use as denominators?
Census
HSU (health service utilisation and outcome)
IDI (integrated data infrastructure)
What is census?
Everyone who answered the cenus (NZ residents)
What is HSU?
Health Services Utilisation, only recorded the people who are using health services in the last 12 months
People who are no sick will not be in it
What is IDI?
Integrated data infrastructure:
Large research database containing microdata about people and households. Used to improve the outcomes for NZers’
What do we need to consider while using data?
Where we pick participants
Population sample vs the Population
e.g. excluding the people who did not get sick and not use healthcare services
What are variables?
Exposure factors
What is population structure?
The factors which build your population like sex, age
What are some events which determine population structure?
- Trends of fertility (there is time lag cos it takes a long time until you become adult)
- Migration (like Chch residents moving to Auck because of the earthquake)
- Mortality events (death, age, sex)
Who are affected in fertility trends?
Females normally aged 20-30 yo, young adults
Who are affected in the mortality events?
Old people and the very young children
Who are the affected in migration?
varies with sex and stage in life cycle
Describe the features of the population pyramid graph
X axis is GENDER
- males on left, females on right
Y axis is AGe
- grouped in 5 year bands
- young to old, bottom to top
Bars wither are % of people in each age-sex group
Why is age and sex structure crucial?
Because it is a crucial influence on the rates at which these events occur in the population
e.g. area/country with very youthful population like likely to have less deaths than a elderly population of the same size but may have more fertile and more migrants
What are the key measure of fertility?
- Crude birth rate
- General fertility rate
- Age specific fertility rate
- Total fertility rate
What is crude birth rate?
No. birth/no of total population per 1000
What is general fertility rate?
an improvement of the CBR
What is age specific birth rate?
No. births to mothers in 5 year age band / no. females in 5 year age band
What is total fertility rate?
Average measure of fertility in the county
What are the types of ageing?
Numerical
Structural
What is numerical ageing?
The ABSOLUTE increase in the population that is elderly
- reflects demographic patterns
- shows us improvement in life expectancy
What is structural ageing?
the increase in the PROPORTION (%) of the population that is elderly
- fertility rates decreasing
Began occurring in the 1800s
Impacts of aging are:
Natural decline
Absolute decline