Public Health Flashcards
Advantages and disadvantages of case-control studies
Advantages: good for rare outcomes, quicker than cohort or intervention studies, can investigate multiple exposures
Disadvantages: difficulties finding controls to match with cases
Describe a case control study
A retrospective observational study which looks at a certain exposure and compares similar participants with and without the disease
What are the 3 domains of public health?
Health protection
Health improvement
Improving services
List the determinants of health
PROGRESS:
Place of residence
Race/ethnicity
Occupation
Gender
Religion
Education
Socio-economic status
Social capital/resources
What is the inverse care law?
The availability of medical & social care tends to vary inversely with the need of the population served
Define equality vs equity
Equality: concerned with equal shares
Equity: what is fair and just
Define health needs assessment
A systematic approach for reviewing the health issues affecting a population which leads to agreed priorities and resource allocation that will improve health and decrease inequalities
Describe the different types of resource allocation eg egalitarian etc
Egalitarian: provides all care that is necessary and required to everyone. Equal for everyone but economically restricted
Maximising: based solely on consequence. Resources are allocated to those likely to receive most benefit but those with less need receive nothing.
Libertarian: each individual responsible for own health. The onus is on the patient so leads to patients being more engaged but not all diseases are self inflicted
Advantages and disadvantages of the theory of planned behviours
Advantages: can be applied to wide variety of health behaviours, useful for predicting intention, takes into account importance of social pressures
Disadvantages: no temporal element, direction or causality, doesn’t consider emotions, assumes attitudes can be measured
What is the theory of planned behaviour?
A cognitive theory that proposes that an individual’s decision to engage in a specific behaviour, such as gambling or stopping gambling can be predicted by their intention to engage in that behaviour
Advantages and disadvantages of the the Health Belief Model
Advantages: can be applied to a wide variety of health behaviours, cues to actions are a unique component
Disadvantages: other factors may influence the outcome, doesn’t consider emotions, doesn’t differentiate between first time and repeated behaviours
Name the types of error involved in medical negligence and give examples
Fixation/loss of perspective: early focus on one diagnosis
Sloth: inadequate documentation/not checking results for accuracy
System error: environmental, technological or equipment failure
Lack of skills: not having appropriate training, skills, practice etc
Mistriage: over or underestimating severity of a situation
Ignorance: lack of knowledge or not knowing what you don’t know
Communication breakdown: unclear instructions/plans or not listening to others
Poor teamwork: poor direction & independent working
Playing the odds: choosing the common & dismissing the rare
Bravado/timidity: working beyond competence & showing confidence to hide underlying deficiences
What are never events? (in relation to errors)
Serious, largely preventable patient safety incident that should not occur if available, preventative measures have been implemented
Define screening
identifying apparently well individuals who have/are at risk of a particular disease
What is the key criteria for a screening test?
Disease: important, natural history known, early treatment better than late
Test: acceptable to the population, facilities available, simple & safe
Outcomes: ongoing feasibility, treatment available, cost-benefit analysis
What is a cross sectional study?
Snapshot data of those with and without a disease to find associations at a single point in time
Advantages and disadvantages of cross sectional studies?
Advantages: quick, cheap, few ethical issues, provide data on prevalence at a single point in time, large sample size, good for surveillance & public health planning
Disadvantages: risk of reverse causality (don’t know whether outcome or exposure came first), cannot measure incidence, risks recall bias & non-response