Global Health Concepts, Evolution, and Epidemiology

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering fundamental global health definitions, historical eras, demographic metrics, disease transitions, and planetary health concepts.

Tropical Medicine

A field originating in colonial times that focused on protecting soldiers and traders from European empires against infectious diseases like malaria and yellow fever in warm colonies.

Public Health

A field originating in the late 1800s focused on disease prevention and health promotion within local communities inside a single country through measures like clean water, sewers, and vaccines.

International Health

A field prominent in the mid-1900s focused on rich countries in the Global North providing medical aid or charity to poor countries in the Global South.

Global Health

Modern, borderless teamwork focused on health issues that cross national borders, emphasizing equal cooperation between all countries, health equity, and multi-sector solutions.

Health Equity

The principle that everyone should have a fair opportunity to attain their full health potential, regardless of wealth, location, race, or religion.

Medicalization

The process of turning a normal human behavior or social issue into a medical condition, such as labeling normal sadness or hyperness as a medical disorder.

De-medicalization

The process of taking a condition or behavior out of the medical world and treating it as normal, such as stopping the medical treatment of homosexuality as a disease.

Empirical

Knowledge or research based on real-world evidence, observation, or experiment, rather than on theories, guesses, or logic alone.

Empirical Data

Information gathered through actual research, such as surveys, scientific experiments, hospital records, or interviews.

Empirical Article

A research paper in which scholars study real data to answer a specific question, rather than writing an essay based on personal opinions or theoretical ideas.

Communicable Diseases

Infectious illnesses passed from person to person, such as malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and diarrheal diseases.

Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs)

Long-term, non-infectious conditions that cannot be caught from another person, including heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes.

Epidemiological Transition

The historical shift in global health from humanity mostly dying young from infectious/communicable diseases to dying primarily from chronic non-communicable diseases.

Preston Curve

A concept showing that life expectancy rises dramatically when a poor country gets slightly richer, but once middle-income status is reached, additional money does not automatically increase lifespan.

One Health / Planetary Health

A concept emphasizing that human health is directly tied to the health of animals and the environment, warning that environmental destruction triggers new pandemics.

WHO Definition of Health

Formulated in 1946 by the World Health Organization, defining health as a complete state of physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

Period Life Expectancy

A synthetic prediction snapshot estimating how long a newborn would live if current age-specific death rates stayed frozen throughout their lifetime.

Cohort Life Expectancy

A historical calculation of the actual average lifespan of a specific group of people born in the exact same year, measured retroactively after all individuals in the group have died.

Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY)

A metric measuring total healthy years of life lost to disease, calculated as $\text{DALY} = \text{YLL} + \text{YLD}$ where $\text{YLL}$ represents Years of Life Lost to early death and $\text{YLD}$ represents Years Lived with Disability.

Years Lived with Disability (YLDs)

A component of DALYs quantifying the health burden and reduced quality of life caused by non-fatal health conditions such as chronic depression, severe back pain, or blindness.

Double Burden of Disease

A situation in middle-income and developing regions where health systems must simultaneously treat infectious diseases and malnutrition while managing rising rates of chronic NCDs like heart disease and diabetes.

Demographic Transition Model

A demography model tracking how a nation's birth and death rates change across four stages as it develops, serving as an early warning system for population aging and healthcare needs.

Brain Drain

The migration of medical professionals moving from low-income countries to high-income countries, leaving developing nations understaffed.

Population Pyramids

Visual graphs used by demographers to illustrate a society's population structure broken down by age, sex, and education level to analyze growth and health trends.