Public Health, EBM & Human Factors Flashcards
What is Public Health?
The art and science of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health through the organized efforts of society.
What are the three domains of public health?
Health improvement
Health protection
Health services deliveries
What is the difference between Primordial and Primary Intervention?
Primordial: involves preventing the development of risk factors for disease.
Primary: This requires modifying existing risk factors to prevent disease development.
What are the three drivers of public health?
Cost-effectiveness
Population health needs
Ethics and values
What are the social determinants of health?
The social determinants of health (SDH) are the non-medical factors that influence health outcomes.
What are social determinants of health?
The social determinants of health (SDH) are the non-medical factors that influence health outcomes.
What are the seven domains of social determinants?
- Income
- Employment
- Housing
- Education
- Crime
- Access to services
- Health
Who was Elizabeth Blackwell?
She was the first female to qualify as a doctor in America.
What does deprivation mean?
Deprived does not just mean ‘poor’ or ‘low income’. It can also mean people have fewer resources and opportunities
What are the eight protected characteristics?
- Age
- Disability
- Gender reassignment
- Marriage and civil partnership
- Race
- Religion or belief
- Sex
- Sexual orientation
In what three ways does poverty affect health outcomes?
-Reduced ability to buy health-supportive
products and services.
* Money worries induce physiological stress
responses (children in the most deprived
quintile 4 x prevalence of severe mental
health problems compared to least
deprived).
* Unhealthy coping strategies.
What two things affect housing?
- Poor quality
- Overcrowded housing
What are five risk factors regarding housing?
Heating inadequacy increased exposure to damp,
molds.
Insecure tenure
Poor maintenance and repair
Inadequate adaptation for disability and infirmity
Minority ethnic households more likely than white
households to live in overcrowded homes and
experience fuel poverty.
What are the five outcomes of inadequate housing?
Increased prevalence of CVD
Increased prevalence of respiratory disease
Increased risk of falls
Increased incidence of deaths during winter
Increased transmission of covid 19
What is the difference between people who do not have a degree or equivalent to those who do regarding average life expectancy?
Those who have a degree live 5 years longer than people with lower levels of education.
How does good education help? (4 things)
- Income → ↑purchasing power and ↓stress
- ↑Health literacy
- Better employment conditions, e.g. occupational health
- ↑engagement with educational services → exposure to protective factors
What are employees with low job security more likely to do compared to those who have job safety?
Nearly twice as likely to report poor health as the average employee
What is the Inverse care law, who proposed it, and what year?
Julian Tudor Hart first proposed the hypothesis in 1971
- Those who most need healthcare are the least likely to receive it.
- Those with the slightest need tend to use health services more frequently and effectively.
What are the four pieces of evidence for, and Development of Inverse Care Law
Higher disease burden in most deprived areas, but fewer doctors working
with higher caseloads and sicker patients.
* Higher hospital admission rates for chronic disease crises (e.g., asthma).
* Lower rates of immunization and screening
* Compared to patients living in the least deprived areas, those in the most deprived
* More likely to report inconvenient hours to deter from making
appointments.
* more likely to report higher dissatisfaction with staff but less
likely to complain.
What are the three elements of Geographic Access?
- Car ownership and drive times.
- Public transport reliability and convenience for accessing essential and health-supportive services e.g.
GP, Post Office, and shopping facilities. - Rural disadvantage
What are four adverse health outcomes associated with neighborhood criminality?
↑prevalence of NCD
↑prevalence of mental health problems, e.g., anxiety, depression, PTSD
↓sense of wellbeing
↑Avoidance behaviors e.g. reduced PA, social interaction
What was the name of Darwin’s thesis, when was it published, and what did it describe?
Darwin’s thesis, The Origin of Species, was published in 1856 and described the theory of evolution – evidencing we are part of nature, we develop from nature, and we are biological beings.
What does Health Psychology challenge?
The mind-body split by suggesting a role for the mind in both the cause and treatment of illness.
What were the seven key behaviors associated with more illness and shorter life expectancy?
Smoking, high alcohol intake, lack of exercise, being overweight, snacking, not eating breakfast, and sleeping less than 7-8 hours a night.
What does Health Psychology emphasize?
The role of psychological and social factors in the cause, progression, and consequences of health and illness
What two things do we need to understand about human behavior?
- We are all human…AND we are all different!
- We are not rational thinkers – just because we say we want to do something or know that we should doesn’t mean we will!
What is cognition?
The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.
Overall perception
How can we increase motivation?
The greater the intrinsic (internally driven) motivation, the more likely people will engage with the behavior. We must tap into people’s desires/values and reduce fears/habits.
What is the biopsychosocial Model of Health, and what does it attempt to do??
An integrated approach to health and illness – the model attempts to integrate the psychological and environmental with the traditional biomedical model of health
How does the biopsychosocial model views health and illness?
As the product of biological characteristics (genes), behavioral factors (lifestyle, stress, health beliefs), and social conditions (cultural influences, family relationships, social support).
What are the three key constructs of Social Cognitive Theory?
- Self-efficacy
- Outcome expectancies
- Barriers
What is self-efficacy?
A person’s confidence to perform a particular behavior, linked to their capability (the knowledge and skills an individual has to perform a given behavior)
What are the four methods of changing self-efficacy?
-Mastery experiences – having the opportunity to practice behavior and then master them
-Modeling – observing others successfully perform the behavior
-Social/verbal persuasion – others expressing confidence in your ability to perform a particular behavior; remembering positive comments/feedback
-Physiological experience – correcting potentially harmful beliefs (e.g., butterflies in the stomach) that are normal/useful.
What were the two most effective methods after feedback?
Feedback on one’s past behaviour and modeling found to be the most effective
What are Outcome Expectancies?
Outcomes anticipated from the behaviour and the extent to which one’s actions help to achieve the outcome
What three things can outcomes be?
- Physical
- Social
- Self-evaluative
What four things can barriers be?
- Environmental
- Emotional
- Self-control
- Goal setting
What do some behavior change models consider?
People are at different, classified, ordered stages and describe how they move through these stages as they change their behavior.
What are the Transtheoretical Model and its six stages?
The transtheoretical model posits that health behavior change involves progress through six stages: pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, and termination.
What is the definition of each six stages of The transtheoretical model?
Pre-contemplation: Not intend to make any changes
Contemplation: Considering a change
Preparation: Making small changes
Action: Actively engaging in a new behavior
Maintenance: Sustaining the change over time
What has the Transtheoretical Model been used for?
Has been applied to several health behaviors (tobacco, alcohol, screening)
What is the Intention-Behaviour Gap?
It occurs when one’s actions do not align with their previous intentions - when people don’t do what they intend to do.
What is Dual Processing Theory
A dual process theory explains how thought can arise in two different ways or as a result of two other processes.
What are the two processes in Dual Processing Theory?
A deliberative orreflectiveprocess that represents rational, deliberative, and conscious decision-making influences on behavior
An implicit orimpulsiveprocess which represents well-learned, spontaneous, and non-conscious influences on behavior
What is the most popular and shared explanation of how thoughts arise?
Dual Processing theory
What is the target of Making a Behavioral Diagnosis?
A Behavioural Diagnosis of the target behavior to understand barriers and facilitators to enact behavior based on Capability, Opportunity, and Motivation.
What three things does The Behaviour change wheel highlight the importance of?
Defining the problem in behavioral terms
Specifying the behavior
Identifying what exactly needs to change
What is the short name for Making a Behavioural Diagnosis?
COM-B
What are the three layers of the COM-B Model?
- Capability
- Motivation
- Opportunity
Explain Psychological and physical capability
Psychological capability: Comprehension of disease and treatment; cognitive functioning, memory, and decision-making capacity
Physical capability: Physical ability to adapt to lifestyle changes/ to use prosthetics; skills, dexterity
Explain Reflective and automatic motivation
-Reflective motivation: Perceptions of illness, beliefs about treatment, and consequences.
-Automatic motivation: Habits, automatic thought processes, emotions, and affective responses.
Explain the physical and social opportunity
-Physical opportunity: Access to health clinics and resources, transport availability, cost
-Social opportunity: Social support, quality of the therapeutic relationship, stigma, social/cultural influences
What is Evidence-Based Medicine?
The conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients.
What are the seven examples of EBM impacts?
Venesection (Pierre Louis, 19th-century French physician)
Antibiotics (1940s trials)
Thalidomide (the 1950s)
Smoking (1954 and onwards)
Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy and sleeping position advice (the 1990s)
HRT and CVD (1997 meta-analysis)
Treatment Covid-19 (ongoing)
Define variables
In medical and health research, the term is used for factors (e.g. characteristics of human subjects, treatments, health conditions) that are thought to be involved in a health status change process.
What are the two divisions of variables?
Dependent variable
Independent variable
Define independent variable
An exposure or treatment - is manipulated in some (measurable) way.
Define dependant variable
The variable that depends on other factors that are measured
Tell me the example between independent and dependent variable
The type of soda – diet or regular – is the independent variable. The level of blood sugar that you measure is the dependent variable – it changes depending on the type of soda.
What are dependent variables monitored and measured for?
Identify the nature and strength of the association (if any) between the dependent and independent variables.
Define quantitive research
Involves the structured collection of numeric data or can be transformed into numeric measures. Ideally evaluated using statistical analysis. Some quantitative research can test hypotheses and demonstrate causality by answering questions such as ‘is this effective’? ‘by how much?’
Define Qualitative research
Involves the systematic collection, organization, description, and interpretation of textual, verbal, or visual data. Usually used for ‘how,’ ‘why,’ and ‘in what way?’ questions.
Cannot confirm relationships between variables or causality. Often used to generate quantitative research questions.
What are two elements of good evidence?
- Reliability
- Validity
How does reliability helps good evidence?
Under the same conditions, the research design produces the same/stable/consistent results across time, investigator changes, and measurement tool changes
Explain what to do with time regarding good evidence in reliability.
Repeat baseline measures of individual patient blood pressure or self-administered questionnaire on satisfaction levels with service are stable/consistent.
Explain what to do with investigator changes regarding good evidence in reliability.
Regardless of who measures blood pressure or the device used by respondents to complete the survey.
Explain what to do with measurement tool changes regarding good evidence in reliability.
Blood pressure readings using ultrasound vs. auscultatory (listening through a stethoscope) techniques or shifting from face-to-face to online administered survey.