Chapter 14: Population Health and Disease Prevention

Why does expectancy keep rising?

improvements in technology and human evolution (evolution of medicine)

What main evolution in medicine has made the life expectancy rise?

vaccines

What does prevention frequently bring to mind?

individual efforts to improve health such as screening for conditions, health education, or adopting a healthy lifestyle

Prevention strategies are applied to what kinds of disease?

infectious and chronic

What is primary prevention?

initiative to stop a disease or condition from happening at all

What is secondary prevention?

prevention of adverse effects to treat a disease to get better

What two perspectives is prevention viewed as?

individual (medical model) and population (public health model)

What is the individual/medical model?

seeks to identify high risk individuals and offer them individual protection often by counseling on topics such as smoking cessation or offering treatment

What is population/public health model?

approach that seeks to reduce cardiovascular disease in a population area as a whole using methods like restricting smoking or requiring food vendors to post nutritional information or building more walkable communities

What is the health impact pyramid from bottom to top?

socioeconomic factors, changing the context to make individuals default decision health, long lasting protective interventions, clinical interventions, counseling and education

Of the sections on the health impact pyramid what has the biggest impact and political effect?

socioeconomic factors

Describe socioeconomic factors

reducing poverty, improving education and increasing access to healthcare

What are some examples of socioeconomic factors?

earned income tax credit, universal education

Describe changing the context to make individuals default decision healthy

eating healthy, exercising, changing the environment in which a person lives to make their healthy choices easier

Describe long lasting protective interventions

screening for cancer, vaccines, colonoscopies, one time or infrequent protective interventions

Describe clinical interventions

medical intervention to reduce the burden of disease

Describe counseling and education

information and education provided to individuals with the intention of changing health behavrios

What is the #1 cause of death in the US?

cardiovascular disease

What can we do to help reduce cardiovascular disease population wise?

reduce smoking by increasing prices, healthy eating, staying active, screening of high cholesterol and HTN to reduce deaths

During the first year of COVID what were the primary tools to control infection?

social distancing and masking

What was the second phase of prevention for COVID?

widespread roll out of vaccines

How does primary prevention save money?

preventing the disease before it gets there can prevent the amount of resources and interactions needed to treat that disease