mph toolkist #2: how is health expressed

type of disease: 7 causes

• Infectious

• Noninfectious

• Genetic

• Autoimmune

• Degenerative

• Deficiency

• Environmental 

type of disease: 4 transmissions

• Direct

• Indirect

• Air-borne

• Vector-borne 

type of disease: 3 durations

• Acute

• Chronic

• Recurrent

type of disease: 5 systems affected

• Cardiovascular

• Respiratory

• Digestive

• Neurological

• Endocrine 

5 diff approaches used to reveal causes of disease

• Etiology: Identifying the causes of diseases, which can be infectious agents (bacteria, viruses, fungi, etc.), genetic mutations, environmental factors, or a combo

• Human genetics

• Genomics: interactions between genes and the environment

• Pathogenesis: how diseases develop and progress, including the cellular and molecular changes that occur

• Molecular Epi: distribution and determinants of disease in populations, w/ a focus on identifying the molecular mechanisms and factors involved

4 main body levels where disease occur

• Molecular level: chemical building blocks

• Cellular level: basic units of life

• Organ level: structure made of tissues with specific functions

• Whole organism-function level: complete living human body

natural history of disease

how a disease develops in a person over time if no treatment or prevention is used

3 main components of disease transmission

• agent/pathogen

• environment

• host

think about bi directional triangle

how the body translate its interaction with the environment 

• Embodiment

  • Body incorporates and adapts to circumstances

• Biomarkers

  • Measurable feature of physiological processing

• Allostatic load

  • Biological systems in place that regulate our responses to stressors (ex: blood pressure or cortisol)

  • Wearing down the body and brain, resulting from chronic overactivity or inactivity of physiological systems

• Gene environment interaction

  • Genes alter the organism’s sensitivity to environmental features and vice versa (ex: stressful life events, depression and serotonin uptake)

Exposome & 4 main components

• All internal & external environmental exp that an individual experiences throughout life. Health & disease results from cumulative/dynamic interactions

  • 4 main components

    • Ecosystems influence

    • Social factors

    • Environmental factors

    • Lifestyle factors

3 main pathways intervene in health status

• Envrionmental: obesogenic (contribute to weight gain & obesity) and developmental environment (all conditions a person encounters where they live, grow, and play)

• Developmental: path dependency (past decisions impacting now), paretnal effects, and early life

• Individual: non-genetic inheritance, epigenetic process (chemical → dna changes), and new biomarkers

4 levels that contribute to health development

• molecular

• individual

• societal

• ecological

health trajectory and functional status