What is public health?
The science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health through organised of society
Provide some examples of PH interventions
Vaccination Motor-vehicle safety Safer workplaces Control of infectious diseases Decline in deaths from coronary heart disease/stroke Safer/healthier foods Healthier mothers/babies Family planning
Define equity?
The absence of avoidable or remedial e differences among groups of people, whether those groups are defined socially, economically, demographically, or geographically
What does the ‘inverse care law’ state?
States that the availability of good medical care tends to vary inversely with the need for it in the population served
What are some ways in which health inequalities may be reduced?
- Health Needs Assessment: identifying vulnerable specific health needs
- HealthEquityAuditofservicedelivery
- Work to improve Equality, Diversity and Human Rights
- Health Impact Assessment of Policies, Programmes and Plans
What are the main measures of health inequality?
- Infant mortality statistics
- Mortality statistics
- Morbidity statistics – including chronic disease management
- Life expectancy at birth
What is epidemiology?
It is the science which informs public health and allows the distribution of health/ill-health in a population to be describes, and possible casual factors to be identified
How do we assess health and disease in populations?
- routine surveillance e.g births, deaths, notifiable diseases -> technically encompasses whole populations (can be imperfect)
- ad-hoc samples e.g local health surveys by CGSs -> reliability depends on sampling strategy
What are examples of routine data?
- Demographic data
- Census
- Births, deaths, fertility
- Health Events data
- Morbidity data
- Mortality data
- Population based health information
- Health Surveys
Routine data advantages?
- readily available
- limited cost
- useful for baseline characteristics
- examine trends of disease over time and by place
Routine data disadvantages?
- lack of completeness/potential for bias
- limited details of determinants e.g ethnicity, income
- often poorly presented
- delay between collection and publication
What is some general information you can receive from a census?
- Population size→calculate rates
- Population structure→service needs
- Population characteristics, measures of deprivation such as:
- Unemployment
- Overcrowding UK
- Lone pensioners
- Single parents
- Lack of basic amenities
Define fecundity (births data)?
The ability to produce offspring
Define fertility (births data)?
The production of life offspring
Provide information on birth notifications?
– by attendant at birth, usually midwife
– within 36 hours to local Child Health Register
– for relevant services such as immunisations
Provide information related to birth registration?
– by parent
– within 42 days to local Registrar for Births
– for statistical purposes
Provide information on death certification?
– statutory obligation for attending doctor
– legally required to provide information on likely cause(s) of death
– notify Coroner’s Officer if unusual or unsure
Provide information regarding death registration?
– by a qualified informant, usually a relative
– within 5 days to local Registrar for Deaths
– requires Death Certificate from doctor
Provide some reasons for collecting mortality data?
- Classify cause(s) of death
- Analyse patterns in mortality rates
- Identify health problems
- Inform service needs
This is collated by Office for National Statistics (ONS)
Describe what verbal autopsies are
- gathering information to determine what the cause of death is in situations where the deceased has not been medically attended
- based on assumption that common/important causes have distinct symptoms that can be reported by lay respondents
Define life expectancy at birth?
Average number of years that a new born is expected to live if current mortality rates contribute to apply
