Public Health Quiz

Validity

The instrument/method that accurately measures what the researcher intends to measure

Reliability

Instrument/method used to measure that produces consistent data

YPPL

Means years per life lost (if someone dies at 50 and the life expectancy is 75 years lost is 25)

DALY

Disability adjusted life year (add years of life lost and years with disability)

Communicable disease

Illnesses that spread through germs and bacteria (flu)

Non-communicable diseases

health conditions (cancer or heart disease)

Determinant vs Cause

Determinant is something that influences your health (where you live) and a cause is something that directly causes a health issue (smoking)

Factor

Anything that influences peoples health

Confounding Factor

Another factor that makes it harder to find out what is causing an issue within a population

Dose-Response

“more is more” “less is less” refers to the relationship between the amount of exposure to a substance or intervention and the resulting effect on an organism.

Cost-benefit

deciding if something is worth it by comparing the benefits with the costs

Significance Test

If the difference between two groups or a result is due to chance or not

Normal Distribution

A bell shaped curve, average is in the middle. Extremes have lowest values in distribution

Nosology

classification of disease, helps group diseases based on symptoms and causes

Disease

We know the cause and how to treat it

Syndrome

The cause is unknown, a cluster of symptoms that people deal with (SIDS)

Cost-effectiveness

Getting the most bang for your buck- comparing costs of different programs to see which one gives the most health benefits with least amount spent

Opportunity Cost

The value that you could have done with those resources if you have chosen a different option/opportunity

Age pyramid

a picture that shows you how many people there are in different age groups

Ecological Fallacy

Assuming something is true for every person just because it is true for the group. (not everyone is poor in a pr neighborhood necessarily)

Epidemiological Shift

Perri Class- changes in the patterns of diseases and health conditions within a population over time

Phase 1 of drug testing

Evaluate safety of drug on small group of people

Phase 2 of drug testing

Test the efficacy and test the safety in a larger group

Phase 3 of drug testing

Monitor side effects, confirm efficacy

Reportable disease

illnesses that healthcare providers and labs must report them by law to public health authorities

Descriptive

Summarizing/describing data to understand whats happening in a population

Analyzing

using data to test hypothesis find out causes or risks

Prospective Study

Participants do not have the outcome (diseases) and are followed to see if they develop it in order to view the causes

• Advantages- clear time sequence, better data quality, good for studying new cases

• Disadvantages- Takes a long time, expensive, people may drop out, wait for results

Retrospective study

Participants already have the health issue and researchers look back in time to see what may have caused it

• Advantages: Quick and cheap, good for rare conditions, gives an idea about causes

• Disadvantages: People may not remember, limited info, no cause and effect

Garbage Code

Nonspecific code for cause of death. Can distort statistics by not saying direct cause of death (someone may smoke and actually die in a car accident)

Crude rate

Measures an occurrence overtime for the entire population

Specific rate

Measures an occurrence overtime for the subgroup of the population (ex: children)

Meta-Analysis

Take a whole bunch of different studies and data about one subject to compare to one another (forest graphs)

How are causes of non-communicable diseases established?

Cohort studies, case-control studies, studying cellular processes, physiological responses, population-level trends

• Koch established an association between a potential cause and a disease outcome

Saracci’s criteria for evaluating health claims

1. Trust new findings only if replicated

2. It isn’t always black and white

3. Trust findings only if placed in context

4. Don’t trust findings based on advertisements (only used to make money)

5. Take time to cross-check info

Three frameworks for measuring health

Social determinants of health, County health rankings, Social Ecological Model

Social determinants of health

Food, education, economy, healthcare, housing, and employment

Bradford Hills Criteria for causation

1. Strength of association

2. consistency

3. specificity

4. Temporality

5. Biological Gradient (dose response)

6. Plausibility

7. Coherence

8. Experimental Evidence

9. Analogy

Koch’s Postulates

1. Microorganism must be found in abundance- not in healthy organisms

2. Must be isolated from a diseased organism and grown in a pure culture

3. Microorganism should cause a disease in a healthy individual

4. Microorganism should be reisolated and identified as identical to the original causing agent

Impact of epidemiology

1. Clinical medicine

2. Public health policy

3. Individual behavior

Aetiological Epidemiology

Looking for links between health and disease

descriptive epidemiology

The prevalence of the disease and details

Evaluative epidemiology

Estimates risks and evaluates interventions of health issues

Health Services Epidemiology

Studies health systems and their impacts on health in populations

Clinical Epidemiology

Studies the course of a disease in a population overtime

Randomized Control Trials

The test of the effectiveness of a drug on someone in an experiment (control and testing groups)

Cohort study

An observational study that measures the correlation between exposure and outcome of a disease

Case Control Study

An observational study that tracks characteristics and events over time

Confidence interval

A way to show how sure we our about out estimate by providing a range of values (forest plot)

Significance test

Check to be sure how likely a result is due to chance

Selection bias

When a population is not representative of the poopulation

Summary of GBD (Global Burden of Disease)

• 450 full time professionals in seattle

• 30+ full time faculty

• scientific council

• statisticians, data, and modeling professionals

• outreach and training professionals

• 3,700 international collaborators

What does the GBD do?

Quantifies health loss from disease, injury, and risk factors and covers 195 countries

EPIC

European Prospective Investigation

• cancer studies on how diet and nutrition effecting cancer

ICD

International Classification of Diseases

SIDS

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Health USA

National Health Database in the US talking about disease prevalence and mortality

• Advantages- access to a wealth of data, monitor population health

• Disadvantages- data might not be perfect or cover every health issue