Public health Flashcards
Explain the difference between primary, secondary and tertiary prevention?
Primary - prevent yourself from getting the disease in the first place e.g. Healthy eating, vaccination
Secondary - Detect disease and prevent it from getting worse e.g. Breast cancer screening
Tertiary - improve the quality of life and treat the symptoms of the disease you already have e.g. insulin therapy in T2DM, Bronchodilators in COPD
Equity?
Distribution of healthcare resources dependent on the needs of the recipient
Equality in healthcare?
Resources distributed the same regardless of the need of the recipient
Horizontal equity?
Equal treatment for equal need e.g. all pneumonia patients treated the same
Vertical equity?
Unequal treatment for unequal need e.g. treatment for common cold v pneumonia
What are the different levels of intervention?
Individual
Community
Ecological
Provide 1 example for each level of intervention?
Individual - smoking cessation, managing hypertension or diabetes
Community - building parks, community centres, taking down takeaways, healthy food markets
Ecological - Sugar tax, Smoking bans in specific places, Healthy eating promotions, Walk instead of drive promotions
Explain the WHO determinants of health?
Structural
- Socioeconomic and political context e.g. governance, policy, values
- socioeconomic status - education, income, occupation, gender, class
Intermediary
- Material, Psychosocial factors, Behaviours, Health systems
3 domains of public health?
Health improvement
Health protection
Health care
Explain health improvement and provide an example?
Interventions aimed to improve disease, promote health and reduce inequalities
- Working with people and understanding why they make the choices they do
encouraging better behaviour and working with them - Influencing policies so people make better choices e.g. sugar tax
Explain Health protection and provide examples?
Identifying risks factors that exist and finding means to protect people against them
- Sharing this information with other relevant bodies
e. g. vaccines, food processing regulations so food isn’t contaminated, walking instead of driving to decrease air pollution
Explain Health care and provide examples?
Making sure the quality of care being delivered is at a high standard is maximising benefit for the recipient
- Facilitating health promotion
e. g. audits, reviews, Care pathways evaluate
What is social cohesion/ Social capital?
The bridge structural determinant and intermediary determinants
- Willingness of people of different populations to make sacrifices/ co-ordinate with each other for the overall benefit of others or so society can better function
Examples of WHO structural determinants?
Governance (how does the government make decisions) Policy Values (social and cultural values of communities) Education Gender Ethnicity Income Social Class
Examples of WHO intermediary determinant?
Material circumstances
Psychosocial factors
Behavioural and biological factors
What is the difference between need, demand and supply? provide an example for each?
Need - the ability to benefit from intervention e.g sugar tax, minimum unit pricing for alcohol
Demand - what people ask for e.g. cosmetic surgery
Supply - what is provided e.g. Tamiflu stockpiles for pandemic flu
Provide health-related examples of intervention, with explanations for each example as to why they may or may not be classified as need, demand or supply
cosmetic surgery - demand - it isn’t necessarily an intervention that people will 100% benefit from and it isn’t just provided to people automatically
Flu jab - supply - what is provided and not always what people ask for and some don’t 100% benefit from it
minimum unit pricing for alcohol - need - 100% benefit from this form of intervention and it’s not what people asked for and it isn’t provided on all types of alcohol
3 main approaches to health need assessment?
Epidemiological
Comparative
Corporate
Explain the epidemiological, comparative and corporate approaches to the health need assessment and provide an illustration
Epidemiological - Define the problem, size of the problem, service availability, quality of service, evidence base, outcomes, existing services, recommendations
Comparative - compares the services received by a population/ subgroup with others - spatial + social e.g. outcomes, service provision, service utilisation
Corporate - obtaining views from a range of stakeholders/ people who can influence decision making and policy e.g. politicians, patients, press, professionals, commissioners
Limitation of the epidemiological approach in health needs assessments?
- Data may be lost
- Variable data quality
- Doesn’t consider the felt needs of people affected
Limitation of the comparative approach in health needs assessment?
- Data may not be available
- Variation in data quality
- Difficult to find a comparable population
Limitation of the corporate approach in health needs assessment?
- Those with the loudest voices will always get their way
- Influence by political agenda
- Difficult to distinguish need from demand
What is health psychology?
Understanding the psychological factors in the cause, progression and consequences of health and illness.
Tackling misconceptions or beliefs and coming up with practical solutions to improve health behaviours
What is health behaviour?
Behavior aimed at preventing disease
What is illness behaviour?
Seeking remedy for illness
What is sick role behaviour?
Behavior aimed at actively getting well
Why do doctors need to know about health behaviours?
- Challenge media headlines read by patients
- Medicine adherence
- Cost of damaging health behaviours
- Lifestyle and morbidity relationship
Difference between self-serving bias and unrealistic optimism with regards to damaging health behaviour?
Self-serving bias - Engaging in health impairing behaviour that we perceive as not being as bad for us but bad for other people
Unrealistic optimism - Due to an inaccurate perception of risk and susceptibility, individuals continue to engage in health-damaging behaviours
Describe 4 factors that influence the perception of risk?
- Lack of personal experience with the problem
- If it’s not happened now, it’s not likely to
- Belief that it is preventable through personal action
- Belief that the problem is infrequent
What is the leading cause of preventable death in Sheffield?
Smoking
What are some ways that the national centre for smoking cessation and training try to improve the overall quality of smoking intervention?
Ensure evidence-based interventions are used
Committing practitioners to provide evidence of them using evidence-based approaches for smoking interventions as part of their CPD
Ensuring healthcare workers have the knowledge and skill to deliver the interventions
What is domestic abuse?
An incident of pattern of coercive, controlling, threatening, violence or abuse between those aged 16+ who have been/ are intimate partners, family members or members of the same household
What risk assessment tool is used to assess the severity of domestic abuse?
DASH risk assessment
Explain the difference between a standard, medium and high DASH risk assessment?
Standard - current evidence doesn’t indicate the likelihood of causing harm
Medium - identifiable indicators of risk of serious harm. The offender has the potential to cause serious harm but unlikely unless a change in circumstances
High - Identifiable indicators of imminent risk of serious harm
In what situations can domestic abuse escalate?
During pregnancy
When the victim tries to leave
What is the MARAC?
Multi agency Risk Assessment Conference - where different agencies come together for people in high risk situations and draw up action plans for such people
- Identify resources that can help such high risk individuals
HARK question?
What kind of direct questions that can be used to explore abuse during a consultation
Humiliation - ever embarrassed you? ever made you feel bad about yourself?
Afraid - what do they do that makes you feel afraid?
Rape - have they ever forced you to do something you didn’t want to or were uncomfortable with?
Kick - Have you ever been physically hurt by your partner?
What is Charles bonnet syndrome?
Side effects of sight loss - phantom visions.
People who have recently lost their vision begin to experience visual hallucinations. The normal response of the brain to a sudden loss of vision
3 different type of canes used by visually impaired people?
Symbol cane
Guide cane
Long cane
Causes of sight loss?
Cataracts Diabetic nephropathy Macular degeneration Glaucoma Hemianopia following brain injury Retinitis pigmentosa
How does smoking prevalence differ between gender?
Teenage girls > teenage boys
Adult males > Adult females
3 main complications of smoking?
Cancer
CVD
COPD
What special populations should be looked out for with regards to smoking cessation?
Pregnant
Mental health problems
Drug/ alcohol dependence
MOA of nicotine?
Mimics acetylcholine which works on part of the brain that controls motivation - Ventral tegmental area
Increased release of dopamine in nucleus accumbens meaning people smoke more to get that same feeling
Withdrawal symptoms of smoking?
Depression Irritability Restlessness Difficulty concentrating Increased appetite Cough Constipation Weight gain Mouth ulcers