Population health Flashcards
What is pubic health?
It is response of society to protect and promote health and to prevent illness
What is lifestyle approach?
It essentially based on the idea that healthy behaviours are shaped by social environment
A public health problem must…
- Be widespread or serious
- Sever consequences to individuals and societies
- High costs to individuals and societies
- Effective methods have to be available to prevent or reduce the impacts
Public health strategies must…
- Use evidence to support the need for intervention
- Use evidence to support the effectivness of interventions
- Have public acceptability and professional support
- Have an economic benefit
What are the three key dimensions of public health?
- Disease prevention
- Health Promotion
- Health protection
Who is involved in Public health?
- Government
- Private sector
- NGO’s (non-govenment organisation)
- All sectors of society
What is epidemiology?
Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinants of health-related states or event in specifed populations, and the application of this study to the control of health problems.
What is a directed acyclic graph?
It is a graph that can be used to describe the task of epidemiologly.
Essentially a C (confounding) is a cause that influences both dependent (Y) and independent variable (X)
What is descriptive epidemiology?
It is part of epidemiology that looks and tries to describe the dependent variable (Y).
Y could be anything, for example dental caries.
Descriptise epidemiology tries to find out how much caries is there in a given poopulation.
What is predictive epidemiology?
It is part of epidemiology that asseses the independent variable in order to predict potential outcomes of the dependent variable.
This aspect of epidemiology caould be used for target interventions.
What is the third task of epidemiology?
To investigate causes and corelations.
For example: does the independent variable (baby formula) really cause a dependent variable to change (dental caries in children).
What is an important distinction that needs to be made when assesing disease in an individual and population?
The causes at the individual level might be different from the causes at the populaiton level.
What are the advantages of high risk approach?
- It is beneficial for individuals
- Important in adressing the inequalities
What are the disadvantages in high risk approach?
- Does not change population levels of disease
- Issues in identifying who is at risk
- Does not change the drivers in population
Continue the phrase by Geoffrey Rose: “Instead of simply focusing on those at high risk we must consider the fact that…”
…a large number of people at a small risk may give rose to more causes of disease than the small number who are at high risk.”
What are the are the advnatages of population health approach?
- Triying to remove the reason why the disease is common
- Almost everyone benefits
What are the disadvantages of population health approach?
- May not address health inequalities
- Does not represent a large benefit to the individual
What is the best approach to health?
Combining both high-risk and the population approaches