Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Chapter 1
What is Health?
Social
Ability to have satisfying relationships; interaction with social institutions and societal
mores.
Mental
Emotional
Spiritual
Environmental Comprised of external factors (i.e., ones surroundings such as habitat or occupation) and internal factors (i.e., ones internal structure such as genetics).
What is Epidemiology?
Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinants of health-related states or events in human populations, and the application of this study to prevent and control health problems.
What is Epidemiology?
The word epidemiology is based on the Greek words:
epiprefix meaning on, upon, or befall demosroot meaning the people logossuffix meaning the study
Events
physical activity, nutrition, environmental poisoning, seat belt use, and provision and use of health services injury, drug abuse, and suicide
Causes
Why did this patient suffer a stroke? Is obesity the cause of metabolic syndrome?
Prognosis
What are the chances of a recurrent heart attack? How long will this knee joint prosthesis last?
Common Source
Tend to result in more cases occurring more rapidly and sooner than host-to-host epidemics. Identifying and removing exposure to the common source typically causes the epidemic to rapidly decrease.
Common Source
Examples anthrax, traced to milk or meat from infected animals botulism, traced to soil-contaminated food cholera traced to fecal contamination of food and water
Propagated
Arise from infections being transmitted from one infected person to another Transmission can be through direct or indirect routes Host-to-host epidemics rise and fall more slowly than common source epidemics
Propagated
Examples tuberculosis whooping cough influenza measles
Mixed Epidemics
Occurs when a common source epidemic is followed by person-to-person contact and the disease is spread as a propagated outbreak Example Shigellosis occurred among a group of 3000 women attending a music festival. Over the next few weeks, subsequent generations of shigella cases spread by person-to-person transmission from festival attendees.
Disease Transmission
Disease transmission usually occurs by direct, person-to-person contact (e.g., STDs) fomite-borne (e.g., Hepatitis A spread by a contaminated eating utensil) vehicle-borne (e.g., HIV/AIDS spread through needle sharing drug users) vector-borne (e.g., Malaria spread through mosquitoes)
Secondary Case
Those persons who become infected and ill after a disease has been introduced into a population and who become infected from contact with the primary case
Stopping an Epidemic
An epidemic can be stopped when one of the elements of the triangle is interfered with, altered, changed, or removed from existence, so that the disease no longer continues along its mode of transmission and routes of infection
Vector
An invertebrate animal (e.g., tick, mite, mosquito, bloodsucking fly) capable of transmitting an infectious agent among vertebrates Can spread an infectious agent from an infected animal or human to other susceptible animals or humans through its waste products, bite, body fluids, or indirectly through food contamination
Plague
Yersinia pestis (the bacteria that causes plague) is found in animals throughout certain parts of the world, most commonly in rats, but occasionally in other wild animals, such as prairie dogs. Plague transmission from these infected animals generally occurs in one of three ways:
Plague
Bites from infected rodent fleas (85%) Direct contact with infected tissue or bodily fluids
For example, people can become directly infected with plague by handling infected rodents, rabbits, or wild carnivores that prey on these animals when plague bacteria enter through the person's skin.
Reservoir
The habitat (living or nonliving) on which an infectious agent lives, grows, multiplies, and is dependent on for its survival in nature Humans often serve as both reservoir and host
Zoonosis
When an animal transmits a disease to a human Examples rabies, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, shigellosis
Carrier
A carrier contains, spreads, or harbors an infectious organism Example Typhoid Mary
Secondary Prevention
Occurs to reduce the progress of disease The disease already exists in the person Cancer screening cancer already present. The goal is to detect the cancer before clinical symptoms arise in order to improve prognosis and prevent conditions from progressing and from spreading
Tertiary Prevention
To reduce the limitation of disability from disease The disease has already occurred Physical therapy for stroke victims Halfway houses for recovering alcoholics Shelter homes for the developmentally disabled Fitness programs for heart attack patients