Public health Flashcards
What is the biopsychosocial model?
An integrated approach to health and disease where:
- Biological - genetic, biochemical etc.
- Psychological - mood, behaviours, personality etc.
- Social - familial, education, cultural, socio-economic, medical etc.
What is the definition of need with regards to health needs?
Need is the ability to benefit from an intervention
What is the definition of demand with regards to health needs?
Demand (want) is what people ask for
What is the definition of supply with regards to health needs?
Supply is what we actually provide
What is Bradshaw’s Taxonomy of need?
Felt: individual perceptions of variation of normal health
Expressed: individual seeks help to overcome the variation in normal health (demand)
Normative: Professional defines intervention appropriate for the expressed need
Comparative: comparison between severity, range of interventions and cost
What is the capacity to benefit?
An individual’s ability to benefit from an intervention
What are examples of interventions that are wanted and supplied? (not needed)
- Antibiotics fr viral illness
- PSA for prostate cancer - not always clinically appropriate
What are examples of wanted and needed? (not supplied)
- Cure for cancer
- Cures for chronic disease
- Better mental health services
(ideally nothing should be in this section)
What are examples of needed and supplied? (not wanted)
- Smoking cessation (not wanted by all)
- Alcohol cessation (not wanted by all)
- Colorectal cancer screening (certain people don’t engage)
What are examples of interventions that are wanted, needed and supplied?
- Free contraception
- Breast cancer screening
- smoking cessation
What may influence need/supply/demand?
- Media
- Cultural and ethical determinants
- Current research agenda
- Public and political pressure
- Historical patterns, inertia, momentum
- Social and educational influences
- Medical influences
What is the health needs cycle?
1) Needs assessment (e.g. PICO - establish what population needs and what service)
2) design
3) launch
4) implementation
5) evaluation
REPEAT
1)…
What approaches may be taken to health needs assessment?
- Epidemiological (biomedical model)
- Corporate (involves stakeholders - asking what is needed)
- comparative (compares health needs with similar populations)
What are the advantages of an epidemiological approach to health needs assessment?
Addresses a clear problem
What are the disadvantages to an epidemiological approach to health needs assessment?
- Can be expensive
- involves analysis of existing data and data collection
reinforces biomedical model
What are the advantages of corporate approach to health needs assessment?
- recognises people important in the services success
- based upon wishes and needs of relevant parties
What are the disadvantages of a corporate approach to health needs assessment?
- may be blurring of demands and needs
- may fit an agenda of a particular stakeholder
- can involve political agendas
- BIAS
What are the advantages of comparative method for health needs assessment?
- Can see evidence of benefit/success in population
- fairly quick and inexpensive
What are the disadvantages of comparative method for health needs assessment?
- hard to find a similar population
What are the evaluation frameworks for interventions?
- Donabedian (evaluates programmes looking at the structure/inputs -> process -> output -> outcome)
- Black (e.g. priority setting - looks at effectiveness -> efficiency -> equity -> humanity)
- Maxwell (e.g. looking at screening programme- effectiveness -> efficiency -> equity -> access -> acceptability -> appropriateness)
What are ecological studies?
A study carried out at a population level rather than an individual one (is descriptive)
What is a multi-group ecological study?
Compares different groups at one point in time
What do Cross-sectional studies do?
Measure the frequency (prevalence), examine distribution and determinants, data is collected at a single point in time (a snapshot).
Can be DESCRIPTIVE or ANALYTICAL
What are the observational studies?
Case-control study
Cohort study
What are case-control studies?
(the reverse of cohort)
- identify those with and without the outcome
- determines previous exposure to potential risk factors
- must have a prior hypothesis
What are cohort studies?
Measure exposures of interest and follow up study participants over time to measure incidence of outcome and interest
- observational study
- measures incidence
- defined on the basis of absence or exposure to suspected risk factor
What are intervention studies?
-RCTs
What is a randomised controlled trial?
An experimental study where participants are randomly allocated to intervention or control with predefined rules for eligibility, endpoints, follow-ups, analysis plans and stopping rules
- the gold-standard of study designs
Why are stopping rules necessary in RCTs?
- if becomes clear that harm or benefit is being shown - rules say that it should stop
- predefined stopping rules should be in place to ensure:no undue risk to participants, control group aren’t being deprived of an effective intervention, no continuing an ineffective intervention