WHO (2009) Global Health Risks Flashcards
Most scientific and health resources go towards treatment. However, understanding the risks to health is key to preventing disease and injuries. A particular disease or injury is o en caused by more than one risk factor, which means that multiple interventions are available to target each of these risks. For example…
the infectious agent Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the direct cause of tuberculosis; however, crowded housing and poor nutrition also increase the risk, which presents multiple paths for preventing the disease.
Most risk factors are associated with more than one disease, and targeting those factors can reduce multiple causes of disease. For example…
Reducing smoking will result in fewer deaths and less disease from lung cancer, heart disease, stroke, chronic respiratory disease and other conditions.
In addition to multiple points of intervention along the causal chain, there are many ways that populations can be targeted. e two major approaches to reducing risk are:
Targeting high-risk people, who are most likely to benefit from the intervention.
Targeting risk in the entire population, regardless of each individual’s risk and potential benefit.
As a country develops, the types of diseases that affect a population shift from primarily infectious, such as diarrhoea and pneumonia, to primarily non-communicable, such as cardiovascular disease and cancers. This shift is caused by:
- improvements in medical care, which mean that children no longer die from easily curable conditions such as diarrhoea.
- the ageing of the population, because noncommunicable diseases affect older adults at the highest rates
- public health interventions such as vaccinations and the provision of clean water and sanitation, which reduce the incidence of infectious diseases.
Low-income populations are most impacted by risks associated with…
poverty, such as undernutri- tion, unsafe sex, unsafe water, poor sanitation and hygiene, and indoor smoke from solid fuels; these are the so-called “traditional risks”.
As life expectancies increase and the major causes of death and disability shift to…
As a result, many low- and middle- income countries now face…
the chronic and noncommunicable, populations are increasingly facing modern risks due to physical inactivity; overweight and obesity, and other diet-related factors; and tobacco and alcohol-related risks.
while still fighting an unfinished battle with the traditional risks to health.
What are DALYs?
A common currency by which deaths at different ages and disability may be measured. One DALY can be thought of as one lost year of “healthy” life, and the burden of disease can be thought of as a measurement of the gap between cur- rent health status and an ideal situation where everyone lives into old age, free of disease and disability.
