Public Health Flashcards
How are mortality rates collected?
The doctor completes the certificate of cause of death, the ‘informant’ takes certificate to local registrar and registers death, copy is sent to ONS, and high compile and publish mortality statistics
What is the underlying cause of death?
The disease or injury that initiated the train of events directly leading to death or the violence that produced the fatal injury
What shows data quality?
C.A.R.T: completeness, accuracy, relevance and timeliness
What is morbidity?
The state of being diseased
What is the iceberg concept of disease?
The number of cases of disease ascertained is outweighed by those not discovered
What is the integrated household survey?
A composite survey combining questions asked in a number of office for national statistics social surveys to gather basic information for a very large number of households
What does the super output area level measure?
Multiple deprivation. Seven domains: income, employment, health, education, skills and training, barriers to housing and services, environment and crime
Why do we collect routine health data?
To monitor the health of the population; to generate hypotheses on causes of ill health; to inform planning of services to meet health needs; to evaluate performances and processes
What is critical appraisal?
Critical appraisal is the process of systematically examining research evidence to asses its validity, results and relevance, before using it to inform a decision
What are the three main questions used in appraisals?
Are the results valid? What are the results? Are the results useful?
What are the difficulties with randomised control trials?
Ethical issues – is it ethical to withhold a life saving treatment that we strongly suspect will be effective; Cost – often very expensive to run, large numbers of participants required, lots of data to collect, often resource heavy, payment to participants may be required; Attrition – trial participants dropping out over time
What is a systemic review?
A review of a clearly formulated question that uses systematic and explicit methods to identify, select and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect and analyse data from the studies that are included in the review.
What is meta-analysis?
The use of statistical techniques to integrate the results of several studies, which answer related research hypotheses
What is a forrest plot?
Graphical representation of the individual results of each study included in a meta-analysis, together with the combined meta-analysis result.
What is homogeneity?
occurs when studies have similar and consistent results
What is heterogeneity?
indicates variability between results above and beyond that expected by chance
What is the I2 index?
I2 index quantifies the degree of heterogeneity in a meta-analysis. 25% (I2=25) indicates low heterogeneity. 50%(I2=50) medium heterogeneity. 75%(I2=75) high heterogeneity
What is sensitivity analysis used for?
to determine how sensitive the results are to changes in how the review was done (used to assess how robust the results are)
What are the two types of stress?
Distress - negative stress which is damaging and harmful; Eustress - positive stress which is beneficial and motivating
What is stress?
A state of mental, emotional, or other strain
What are two types of causes of stress?
Internal stressors and external stressors
What are internal stresses?
Physical (inflammations, infections) and Psychological (personal expectations, attitudes and beliefs, worry about an event)
What are external stressors?
Environmental factors i.e. overcrowding; Work; Social & cultural pressures
What are the three stages of adaptation?
Alarm – When the threat or stressor is identified or realized, the body’s stress response is a state of alarm.; Adaptation/resistance - the body engages defensive countermeasures against the stressor; Exhaustion – the body begins to run out of defences, resources depleted
What are direct controls of meal size?
all factors relating to the direct contact of food to the gastrointestinal mucosal receptors
What are indirect controls of meal size?
Anything not involved in direct contact with food. metabolic, endocrine, cognitions, individual differences, social and environmental factors
What is satiation?
what brings an eating episode to an end
What is satiety?
inter-meal period
What is the satiating efficiency?
A nutrients capcity to make you feel full. Protein>CHO>fat>alcohol
What is oxidative heirachy?
The priority of utilisation of the body: alcohol > protein + CHO > fat
How does fat affect satiation and satiety?
relatively weak effect on satiation and satiety (relative to protein and CHO) so by the time you feel full you’ve already eaten too much fat
What is passive overconsumption?
Eating too much food before you feel full so you eat too much
What is energy density?
Kcal/g. A large energy density is associated with a large energy intake
How can we reduce energy density?
Incorporating water; Air (industry); Fruits and vegetables; Reducing fat (individual/ industry) • Method of cooking
What is energy compensation?
The adjustment of energy intake following the ingestion of a particular food
Is energy compensation higher with liquids or foods?
it is lower with liquids than solids other than the exception of soup!
How does alcohol affect over-eating?
Consumed in liquid form; Least satiating macronutrient; Efficiently oxidised at the expense of fat; Additive to total daily energy intake – passive overconsumption; Stimulatesintake–active overconsumption; Associated with poorer food choices – interaction with type of beverage consumed; Pattern of consumption is important
What is the variety effect?
Following the consumption of a food, there is a reported decrease in the pleasantness of the appearance, smell, taste, & texture of that food, whilst other foods remain pleasant
How does distraction affects the amount of food eaten?
There is a high energy intake when you are distracted (eg. socially or watching tv)
What is dietary restraint?
Disinhibited eating behaviour is not only associated with weight gain and obesity, less healthful food choices
How does sleep affect the amount of food eaten?
Short sleep duration sleep is associated with reduced diet quality and overeating. This is also observed in children
What is reward sensitivity?
Correlation between sensitivity to reward traits and neural responses to palatable food images. Obese individual are more responsive to visual images of food
What is the epidemiological pattern?
Effects rich first & then association is reversed (ie. obesity associated with low social economic class).
How does the social gradient of obesity differ between men and women?
For women, disparity in obesity by social class is longstanding. Among men, become more pronounced in recent years.
What is sexual and reproductive health?
Complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease, dysfunction or infirmity, in all matters relating to the reproductive system and to its functions and processes.
What is the aim of sexual and reproductive health promotion?
The objective of SRH promotion is to enable individuals, communities and population groups to enhance control over the determinants of health and thus increase people’s capacity to achieve optimal sexual and reproductive health over their life course
What are behavioural HIV interventions?
Sex education; stigma and discrimination reduction programmes; counselling
What are biomedical HIV interventions?
Voluntary male circumcision; needle exchange programmes
What are structural HIV interventions?
Decriminalisation of sex work, homosexuality; micro-finance schemes
What are the key challenges to sexual and reproductive health interventions?
Deep seated hierarchies and inequalities difficult to address - gender and poverty; Close linked to religious and moral understandings; Stigma, discrimination, confidentiality concerns, compounded by legality issues; Wide range of providers-disjointed
What is globalisation?
An openness to trade, to ideas, to investment, to people, and to culture; Transnationalisation of the world economy; The widening, deepening and speeding up of interconnectedness between countries; A process of transformation at the international systems level; A process that blurs and dissolves national boundaries
What affects refugee health needs?
where they have come from
the migration process
where they end up
What are the key challenges of an aging population?
strains on pension and social security systems;
increasing demand for health care;
bigger need for trained-health workforce;
increasing demand for long-term care;
pervasive ageism that denies older people the rights and opportunities available for other adults.
What are the causes of population aging?
Improvements in sanitation, housing, nutrition, medical interventions.
Life expectancy is rising around the world.
Substantial falls in fertility.
Decline in premature mortality.
More people reaching older age while fewer children are born.
What is intrinsic aging?
Intrinsic: natural, universal, inevitable, chronological
What is extrinsic aging?
Extrinsic: dependent on external factors, eg exposure to UV rays, smoking, air pollution etc
What are the physical changes in aging?
◦loss of skin elasticity;
◦loss of hair and hair colouring;
◦decrease in size and weight;
◦loss of joint flexibility;
◦increased susceptibility to illness;
◦decline in learning ability;
◦less efficient memory
Which gender live longer?
Women live longer than men (5 to 8 years typically)
In very old age, the ratio of women/men is 2:1
Why do women live longer than men?
20% biological:
◦Until menopause hormones protect women from heart disease
80% environmental:
◦Men take more lifestyle risks than women
What are the consequences of the aging population?
- Pensions will have larger pay outs than those currently planned
- Health and social care services will have to serve an older population with chronic and comorbid conditions.
- Rising inequalities as more affluent social groups use health and social services for longer.