Week 6: Chronic illness (HIV & Cancer) Flashcards
Health promotions and public health programs?
Promote positive health behaviours and reduce harmful health behaviours
Improve attitudes, beliefs and behaviours that contribute to ill health
What is epidemiology?
Deals with incidence, distribution, and possible control of diseases and other factors relating to health
Why have public health challenges increased?
Have increased because of chronic disease being on the rise
What is chronic disease?
Diseases lasting 3 months or more
Generally cannot be prevented by vaccines or cured by medication nor do they just disappear on its own
What is a non-communicable disease?
a non-infectious health condition that cannot be spread from person to person
Historically, why weren’t HIV and cancer considered chronic diseases?
They were considered terminal illnesses and were feared!! they weren’t considered chronic because people typically died from them fairly quickly
What is HIV?
Lentivirus - slow virus
Binds to T helper cells in the immune system and causes a progressive failure of the immune system that allows life threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive
Is there a cure for HIV?
No - have it for life
What happens if HIV remains untreated?
Leads to AIDS
What are some of the symptoms of HIV?
Fever, chills, rash, night sweats, muscle aches, sore throat, fatigue, swollen lymph nodes, mouth ulcers
Explain the stages of HIV
Acute infection: very contagious - can be asymptomatic
Chronic infection: Progresses and the immune system becomes overloaded - this is how AIDS develop
AIDS: Most severe stage, really damaged immune system, opportunistic infections, very infectious. Without treatment you survive approx. 3 years
How can you prevent AIDS?
Limiting number of sexual partners - using condoms every time
Never sharing needles
HIV preventative medication?
PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) - medicine taken daily by people without HIV who are at very high risk from acquiring it from sex (99% effective) or injection drug use (74% effective). Stops HIV from taking hold and spreading throughout the body.
PEP (post-exposure prophylaxis) - must be started within 72 hours after exposure. Should only be used in emergency situations
Is HIV considered a chronic illness?
Yes - now it is.
Mortality rates have decreased
Roughly how many people die from HIV/AIDS every year?
Nearly 1 million people
Roughly how many people are living with HIV/AIDS worldwide?
37 million adults and children
Majority in low and middle income countries
Which people are at risk but hard to reach?
Sex workers
People in prison
Men who have sex with men (but don’t identify as gay)
Transgender people
Which group are being increasingly affected by HIV?
Young girls and women (15-24)
Account for 1 in 4 HIV cases (Africa)
Lifestyle factors that speed up progression from HIV to AIDS?
Drug use
Unsafe sex
Unhealthy behaviours
Stress
Explain macro and micro risk environments and HIV
Micro-risk: focuses on personal decisions and influence of community-level norms and practices
Macro-risk: structural factors eg. Laws, government policies, economic conditions, wider cultural beliefs
HIV treatment allows….
Individuals to live well into old age
Also reduces viral load to undetectable levels which reduces onward sexual transmission
Stages of change model and HIV?
HIV prevention interventions mapped on to an individual or population’s readiness or stage of change.
Used to model and encourage women’s movement form their current stages to the next stage in terms of safe sex practices
AIDS Risk Reduction model
Incorporates variables from other behaviour change theories
Provides a framework for explaining and predicting behaviour change efforts - especially sexual transmission
3 stages:
- labelling of high‐risk as problematic
- Making a commitment to changing high risk behaviours
- seeking and enacting solutions directed at reducing high risk activities
Also considers: knowledge of risks, susceptibility, costs and benefits, self efficacy, emotional states, social factors
Explain risk compensation
individual’s perception that receiving HIV treatment or another preventive intervention renders HIV transmission less likely therefore the individual “compensates” by engaging in higher‐risk behaviour.
‘okay i’m on medication now, i’m fine’ - higher risk behaviour. problematic because we know medications don’t completely protect
notion of reduced risk is so POWERFUL that studies have shown that the mere promise of expanded access to treatment is associated with significant increases in risk behaviour
