Public Health Flashcards
What is primary prevention
stopping a disease before it manifests e.g. vaccinations
What is secondary prevention
detecting a disease early to prevent it from progressing e.g. screening
What is tertiary prevention
Known disease, preventing complications e.g. eye screening for diabetics
Prevention paradox
Not useful for the individual but for society e.g. vaccinations
Principles of screening
important problem, latent phase, known natural history, suitable screening test, treatment available
Define Sensitivity
% of people correctly identified by a test. true positives/everyone with the disease
Define specificity
% of people correctly identified as NOT having the disease
true negatives/every without the disease
Define positive predictive value
% of those with a positvie result that DO have the disease
Negative predictive value?
% of negative results that don’t have the disease
What is a cohort study?
study a group of people going FORWARD in time
What is a case control study?
group of people some with a disease and
some without looking BACK
Randomised control trial?
give half a population a drug and half the population a placebo
What is a cross sectional study?
specific point in time, who does and doesn’t have the disease and who was exposed to a risk factor
What is an ecological study?
prevalence of disease in different areas
Selection bias
error in participant selection
Information bias
Error in getting the information
Association of 2 diseases problems?
bias, chance and confounding factors
What do you need to say there’s causality?
Reversibility Strength of association Dose response Consistency Temporality - does exposure precede the outcome? Biological plausibility
Define epidemiology
Study of frequency, distribution and determinants of health
Define incidence
How many people get the disease/NEW CASES per unit of time
Define prevalence
The number of cases in a particular time
Number needed to treat formula
1/absolute risk reduction
