Graded A+
Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence
of disease or infirmity - ANS ✔WHO's definition of disease
Health is the capacity of people to adapt to, respond to, or control life's challenges and changes
- ANS ✔Functional definition of health
refers to the biological or physical malady affecting the body - ANS ✔Disease
refers to the perception of dysfunction by the afflicted individual - ANS ✔illness
refers to the social acknowledgement of impairment or affliction - ANS ✔sickness
relationship between disease, illness, and sickness
- high blood pressure can lead to heart attack or stroke but person does not feel ill, does not
seek medical care, or comply with therapy - ANS ✔disease without illness
relationship between disease, illness, and sickness
- person feels ill, but doctors can't find anything wrong despite extensive medical testing - ANS
✔illness without disease
relationship between disease, illness, and sickness
- person feels ill and stays home from work, but employer requires a doctor's note in order to
excuse absence - ANS ✔illness without sickness
,Factors that Cause Disease - ANS ✔1) germs
2) genetics
3) lifestyle
4) multifactorial disease causation
Contributors to the Germ Theory of Disease - ANS ✔1) Koch
2) Lister
3) Pasteur
1) germs are present in those with disease, and are absent in those without
2) germs can be isolated/cultured from those with disease
3) germs cause diseases when introduced into healthy host
4) germs can then by re-isolated from the newly-diseased host
but, this ignores the social context and potential genetic origins of many diseases - ANS ✔Koch's
postulates
1) sepsis (infection) might be caused by pollen-like dust contaminating surgical wounds
2) antiseptic conditions, including application of carbolic acid, should therefore logically prevent
wound infections
3) surgical mortality fell from 45% to 15% after his intervention - ANS ✔Lister reasoned that
1) first postulated the germ theory of disease
2) discovered principles of microbial fermentation and sterilization
3) first described heat treatment methods for milk and wine - ANS ✔Pasteur
this theory shifts responsibility for disease to interplay between genetics and environment
,for example:
- emphasize hereditary vulnerability
- focus on the individual, rather than society - ANS ✔genetic theories
this theory is behaviourally-driven
for example:
- smoking
- consuming alcohol
- eating fatty foods
theory emphasizes individual behaviour changes as the route to good health - ANS ✔lifestyle
theories
ex. epigenetics
- where having a specific gene raises risk for a disease but is not completely deterministic
- some sort of environmental trigger is needed` - ANS ✔multifactorial disease causation
generally considered a broader concept and encompasses other areas of lived experience like
sense of financial security, level of work stress, or satisfaction with family life - ANS ✔well-being
the state of feeling well (not ill or sick) - ANS ✔wellness
groups of individuals with a shared characteristic and can be geographically or politically
defined, but don't need to be - ANS ✔populations
, the health outcomes of a group of individuals, including the distribution of such outcomes
within the group
- field includes health outcomes, patterns of health determinants, and policies and intervention
that link these two - ANS ✔population health
"Population Health is an approach to health that aims to improve the health of the entire
population and to reduce health inequities among population groups." The population health
approach recognized that health is a capacity or resource rather than a state, .. being able to
pursue one's goals, to acquire skills and eduction, and to grow - ANS ✔Public Health Agency of
Canada: Population Health
the study of distribution and determinants of disease in populations
- provides important information to develop, implement, and evaluate approaches to prevent
disease and improve quality of life in populations - ANS ✔epidemiology
the focus of descriptive epidemiology - how specific health outcomes are dispersed or
patterned across a population; this is essential for developing hypotheses about the etiology
(origins) of disease or other health problems and for planning health services - ANS
✔distribution in epidemiology
the focus of analytical epidemiology
- a determinant is anything that influences that state of health in an individual and/or the
distribution of health states in a population - ANS ✔determinants in epidemiology
In understanding influences on health and disease, there are some fundamental assumptions to
note - ANS ✔- diseases don't distribute randomly in populations, but rather distribute in
relation to the factors that determine health for the individuals in that population
- factors that determine health status can be identified by studying distributions of health
outcomes in populations