Exam 2 Study Guide: Nutrition, Epidemiology, Global Health, and Disease

Vocabulary flashcards covering core concepts for Exam 2, including nutrition, food security, epidemiological principles, study designs, data types, globalization, infectious disease dynamics, and chronic illnesses.

Adequacy

A dietary basic where the diet provides all the essential nutrients, fiber, and energy in amounts sufficient to maintain health.

Balance (Dietary)

A feature of eating for health that provides several types of foods in harmony with one another.

Calorie Count

A dietary feature focused on the control of consumption of energy, which serves as fuel for body processes and physical activity.

Moderation

The attribute of a diet that provides no unwanted constituent in excess.

Variety

A feature of a diet in which different foods are consumed.

Food Insecurity

The state of being without reliable access to a sufficient amount of affordable and nutritious food.

High Food Security

A food security category where households have no problems or anxiety about consistently accessing adequate food.

Marginal Food Security

A food security category where households experience problems or anxiety at times regarding access to adequate food, but the quality, variety, and quantity are not substantially reduced.

Low Food Security

A food security level where households reduce the quality, variety, and desirability of their diets, but quantity of food intake and normal eating patterns are not substantially disrupted.

Very Low Food Security

A food security level where eating patterns of one or more household members are disrupted and food intake is reduced at times during the year due to a lack of money or other resources for food.

Urban Food Desert

An urban area located $1\,\text{mile}$ or more from a supermarket.

Rural Food Desert

A rural area located $10+\,\text{miles}$ from a supermarket.

Acts of Commission

Active measures contributing to food insecurity, such as attacks on food production, attacks on markets, and the restriction of people's movement.

Acts of Omission

Failures to act that contribute to food insecurity, such as when food relief is blocked.

Acts of Provision

Actions contributing to food insecurity involving the selective provision of aid to one side of a conflict.

Cycle of Hunger

A self-reinforcing pathway: Food insecurity leads to low food quality (high stress), leading to chronic disease, leading to high medical costs (low employability), resulting in continued financial strain.

Epidemiology

The study of the distribution and determinants of health-related states or events in specified populations, and the application of this study to the control of health problems.

Incidence

The proportion of individuals who develop a disease or condition among the population at risk over a specified time period (measures new cases).

Prevalence

The proportion of individuals having a given disease or condition at a specified point in time (measures all existing cases).

Outbreak

A localized epidemic with a smaller number of cases.

Endemic

A persistent, usual, and expected health-related state or event in a defined population over a given period of time.

Epidemic

A health-related state or event in a defined population occurring above the expected level over a given period of time.

Pandemic

An epidemic affecting a large number of people across many countries, continents, or regions.

Descriptive Epidemiology

The branch of epidemiology that quantifies health and disease distribution by assessing person, place, and time, generating hypotheses regarding risk factors or causes.

Analytic Epidemiology

The branch of epidemiology that measures determinants by testing hypotheses regarding associations between exposures and outcomes using comparative groups.

Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT)

An experimental study design where participants are randomly assigned to an intervention or control group, representing the only design capable of definitively proving a cause-and-effect relationship.

Exposure

The independent variable; an attribute, environmental agent, behavior, or treatment suspected of influencing a health result.

Outcome

The dependent variable; the measured health condition, disease, symptom, or end state that occurs following an exposure.

Prospective Cohort Study

A study design that begins with exposure status, selects disease-free subjects at risk, follows them through time, and compares the incidence rates of disease between exposed and unexposed groups.

Case-Control Study

A study design that begins with the outcome by selecting subjects with disease (cases) and without disease (controls), retrospectively determining exposure via questionnaires to compare exposure prevalence.

Cross-Sectional Study

An observational study design that assesses prevalent disease and individual-level data at a single point in time, lacking a temporal sequence between exposure and disease.

Relative Risk (RR)

The ratio of disease incidence in an exposed group compared to an unexposed group, represented by $\text{RR} = \frac{\text{Incidence of disease in exposed group}}{\text{Incidence of disease in unexposed group}}$.

Absolute Risk

A measure of the actual difference in risk between groups (e.g., reducing cancer incidence from $2\,\text{per}\,1000$ to $1\,\text{per}\,1000$) that communicates the true impact of an intervention.

Globalization

The process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide that accelerates communicable disease spread and promotes the rise of non-communicable diseases.

Private Tax Havens

Financial entities that undermine global health by starving public budgets of essential revenue needed to fund healthcare systems, hospitals, water, sanitation, and social determinants of health.

Misinformation

Unintentional mistakes in information, such as inaccurate photo captions, dates, statistics, translations, or when satire is mistaken for serious news.

Disinformation

Deliberately fabricated or manipulated audio/visual content, intentionally created rumors, or manufactured conspiracy theories.

Malinformation

The deliberate publication of private information for personal or corporate interest rather than public interest, or the intentional altering of the context, date, or time of genuine content.

Infectivity

The capacity of an infectious agent to enter and multiply within a susceptible host.

Pathogenicity

The capacity of an infectious agent to cause disease in an infected host.

Antigenicity

The capacity of an infectious agent to induce antibody production and stimulate an immune response in a host.

Virulence

The severity of the disease produced by an infectious agent.

Contagiousness

The transmissibility of an infectious agent, measured quantitatively in terms of the reproduction number.

Susceptibility

The state of being predisposed or sensitive to developing a certain disease, determining the speed and likelihood of an outbreak.

Direct Transmission

The direct and immediate transfer of an infectious agent to a host by an infected person or animal via mechanisms like touching, biting, or sexual intercourse.

Vehicle-Borne Transmission

A form of indirect transmission where an infectious agent is transmitted through contaminated inanimate objects.

Vector-Borne Transmission

A form of indirect transmission where an infectious agent is transmitted via an animal or arthropod host.

Airborne Transmission

A form of indirect transmission through microbial, particulate, or chemical agents that remain suspended in the air for long periods.

Active Immunity

Immunity acquired through antibody production by the host, either naturally via infection or artificially via vaccination.

Passive Immunity

Immunity acquired through the transfer of external antibodies, either naturally through maternal antibodies or artificially via monoclonal antibodies.

Infectious Disease

A contagious, pathogen-driven communicable disease that is typically acute, curable, eradicable, and produces an effective immune response.

Chronic Disease

A non-communicable, non-contagious condition driven by genetics or lifestyle that is typically permanent, incurable, non-eradicable, and produces an ineffective immune response.

Stigma (Mental Health)

Negative attitudes and inaccurate beliefs directed toward individuals with mental health conditions, originating from myths, misconceptions, and a lack of information.