Public Health Flashcards
Used lectures from 2017-18 and some peer teaching powerpoints
Which model is the most powerful predictor of health experience?
Socio-economic model
What is social class?
A measure of not only occupation but also stratification, social position, access to power and resources
What are the 2 main reports in response to health inequalities?
- The Black Report (1980)
- The Acheson Report (1998)
What does the Black Report look at?
It’s a response to health inequalities.
- Looked at how health standards are directly linked to social class
- Looked at factors such as poor environment, housing, education etc
What is the Acheson Report?
It’s a response to heath inequalities.
- High priority should be given to health of families with children
- All policies likely to have an impact on health should be evaluated in terms of their impact on health inequalities
What is ethics?
Broadly defined as the philosophical study of moral principles of right and wrong actions or ways of living
What are the 3 ethical levels?
Meta-ethics
Ethical theory
Applied ethics
What is meta-ethics?
Explores fundamental questions (can things be right or wrong, what is the good life, etc)
What is ethical theory?
Philosophical attempts to create ethical theories
Virtue Categorical Imperative Utilitarianism 4 principles
What is applied ethics?
Recent emergence of ethical investigation in specific areas eg environmental, medical and PH
What are posible rivals to ethical arguments?
Laws, codes of ethics, religious/cultural beliefs, personal conscience
What is the difference between morals and ethics?
Morals are personal, self-held: everyone can have different morals/beliefs regarding what is right/wrong
whereas
Ethics are often societal and community perceptions about right and wrong
What is utilitarianism?
- Example of consequentialism
- Actions are right if they do the most BENEFIT for the MOST people
What is consequentialism eg utilitarian?
- Actions are ethical based on the CONSEQUENCES of the action
What are virtue ethics?
- Actions are judged based on the CHARACTER of the individual carrying out the action
- Integrates reason and emotion
- Based on the VIRTUES they hold
What is deontology?
- Features of the act themselves determine worthiness
- eg Virtue
Challenge: can duties conflict?
What are the 4 ethical principles?
- Autonomy
- Beneficence
- Non-maleficence
- Justice
What is autonomy?
People have the right to choose what happens to them
What is beneficence?
Do good
What is non-maleficence?
Do no harm
- Ensure your actions do not cause harm
What is justice?
Fairness for all
- Examples include fair distribution of scarce resources, respecting everyone’s human rights etc
What is at the top of the hierarchy for evidence based medicine?
Systematic reviews / meta analysis of RCTs
What is bias?
Systematic error in studies that leads to errors in conclusion or skewed results
Name some types of bias
Observer, measurement, lead-time, publishing
How do you remove bias?
Blinding in studies
What does chance mean?
The observation may not be a true one
What is a confounder?
A factor that independently influences the outcome of a situation, but doesn’t lie on the causal pathway
What are the 2 basic approaches for statistical analysis?
- Estimation (CI)
- Hypothesis testing (p values)
If a CI goes over 0, is it relevant?
No
State the definition of CI (confidence interval)?
A range of values, so defined that the true value probably lies within
What is the usual chosen CI?
95%
if you did the test 100x, 95 are likely to contain true value for the population
State the definition of p-value
The probability of an event occurring, given the null hypothesis is true
(p-value between 0-1)
What is the WHO definition of health?
A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity
What are the key features of PH?
- Health promotion (lifestyles eg change4life campaign, inequalities, education etc)
- Health protection (infectious diseases, env disasters, emergency responses etc)
- Improving services (clinical effectives, audit and evaluation etc)
What is the inverse care law?
Those who need medical care the most are least likely to access
What does primary prevention do?
- Prevents a disease from occurring
What are examples of primary prevention?
Lifestyle changes, water fluoridation, childhood immunisation
What does secondary prevention do?
- Aims to reduce impact of disease - to halter slow disease progession
What are examples of secondary prevention?
- Breast cancer screening, aspirin to prevent further MIs
What does tertiary prevention do?
- Minimises disability (improves quality of life) and prevents complications
What are examples of tertiary prevention?
Rehab post-stroke
What is the difference between primary and secondary screening?
Primary prevents disease OCCURRENCE eg screening to find risk factors
whereas
Secondary detects EARLY disease, to alter the course eg mammography to treat breast cancer early
What is the screening criteria?
Wilson and Junger
Name the Wilson and Junger screening criteria regarding the CONDITION
- Condition should be an important health problem
- Natural history should be well understood
- Should be a detectable early stage
Name the Wilson and Junger screening criteria regarding the TREATMENT
- Should be accepted treatment with the disease
- Facilities for diagnosis/treatment should be available
- Adequate health service provision should exist for those found positive
Name the Wilson and Junger screening criteria regarding the TEST
- Suitable test should exist for early stage
- Test should be acceptable
- Should be repeated
Name the Wilson and Junger screening criteria regarding the RISKS & BENEFITS
- Should be an agreed policy on whom to treat
- Costs should be balanced vs benefits
- Risks (psych/phys) should be less than benefits
How can prevalence be monitored?
Actively (see out ppl with disease)
Passively (taken from data at GP practices or anonymous info)
What is a false positive?
Screening test says they have the disease but they do not upon further testing
What is a false negative?
Screening test says they do not have the disease but they do/will develop
What is sensitivity?
The proportion of people with the disease who are correctly identified by the screening process
= a / a+c
where a = true positive and c = false negative
What is specificity?
The proportion of people without the disease who are correctly excluded by the screening process
= d / b+d
where d = true negative and b = false positive
What is the PPV (positive predictive value?)
Proportion of people who have a positive screening test and do have the disease
- Want this to be high
What is the NPV (negative predictive value?)
Proportion of people with a negative result who do not have the disease following testing
- Want this to be high also
Name some examples of STIs
HIV, gonorrhoea, chlamydia
Name some ways in which sexual health is screened/prevented
HIV testing for mothers, free STI testing, home testing kits, anonymous services
What are the stages in the transtheoretical model (model of change)?
- Precontemplation (not ready/thinking about quitting eg)
- Contemplation (getting ready - thinking about quitting but not quite ready)
- Preparation (ready - taking steps to prepare)
- Action (ex-smoker, quit for <6m)
- Maintenance (non smoker, quit for >6m)
- Relapse?
Name some attempts to reduce smoking prevalence
- Ban of smoking in public places (2005)
- Change in legal ace to buy tobacco prods (2007)
- NHS stop smoking campaign
Why do people smoke?
- Nicotine addiction (withdrawal, tolerance)
- Stress coping mechanism
- Socialising
- Weight loss
What are the 3A’s?
Ask (are you a smoker, ex, etc)
Advise (can help if you want)
Assist (refer to local stop smoking service)
What is the chain of infection?
- Susceptible host
- Causative micro-organism
- Reservoir
- Portal of exit
- Mode of transmission (spread)
- Portal of entry
If you break the chain at any point, infections can be prevented and controlled
What makes somebody a susceptible host?
- Extremes of age
- Those undergoing treatments for disease eg chemotherapy
- Anything which may reduce resistance to infections eg smoking
Name some portals of entry and exit for infection
Respiratory tract, GI tracts, broken skin
What does infection transmission depend on?
- Number of microorganisms spread
- Microorganism stability in environment
- Number of microorganisms need to infect a new host
Name some types of exogenous spread (cross-infection)
- Direct contact eg breast milk, sexual contact
- Indirect contact eg infected surfaces
- Airborne spread eg sneezing/vomiting
What is self spread in regards to infection transmission?
Organisms that live in a specific area can cause infection if moved to another site eg UTI caused by e coli due to proximity of rectum to urethra
What is the purpose of hand decontamination?
- To remove transient hand flora
- To reduce number of resident flora
NB: the microorganisms that occupy a particular body site = resident flora
What are the 3 levels of hand washing?
- Social/routine handwash
- Hygienic hand antisepsis
- Surgical hand scrub