Public Health Foundations: Study Guide and Key Terms

Overview and History of Public Health

Definitions and Approaches

Public health is the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health through organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private communities, and individuals.

• Common Elements: Focus on population health, prevention, and health promotion.

• Distinction: Public health vs. medical approach—public health emphasizes populations and prevention, while medicine focuses on individual diagnosis and treatment.

• Major Achievements: Examples include vaccination, sanitation, and chronic disease prevention.

Historical Importance

• Landmark Figures: John Snow (cholera), Edward Jenner (smallpox vaccine), Florence Nightingale (sanitation).

• Key Events: Smallpox eradication campaign, sanitation movement.

• Evidence-Based Framework: Steps for approaching a public health issue:

  1. Problem identification

  2. Etiology (cause)

  3. Recommendation

  4. Implementation

  5. Evaluation

  Example: Rey's syndrome case study.

Structure and Function of Public Health in the US

Organization and Essential Services

The US public health system is organized at federal, state, and local levels, each with specific roles and responsibilities.

• 10 Essential Services: Include monitoring health, diagnosing and investigating, informing and educating, mobilizing community partnerships, developing policies, enforcing laws, linking to care, assuring workforce, evaluating, and researching.

• Federal Agencies: CDC, NIH, FDA, SAMHSA, HRSA.

• Role of Laws: Laws and policies shape public health practice and response.

Social Determinants of Health (SDOH)

Definition and Impact

Social determinants are the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age, affecting health outcomes.

• Social-Ecological Model (SEM): Considers individual, interpersonal, organizational, community, and policy levels.

• Equality vs. Equity: Equality means giving everyone the same resources; equity means distributing resources based on need.

• Application: Use the SEM to analyze health issues and interventions.

Epidemiology and Public Health Data

Measures and Study Designs

Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinants of health-related states or events in populations.

• Measures: Incidence (new cases), prevalence (total cases), mortality (death rates).

• Types of Studies: Descriptive (who, what, when, where), analytic (why, how).

• Analytic Studies: Observational (cohort, case-control) vs. experimental (randomized controlled trials).

• Association Measures: Odds ratio, relative risk.

• Surveillance: Passive (routine reporting), active (outreach to detect cases), syndromic (monitoring symptoms).

• Confounding: A variable that distorts the true relationship between exposure and outcome.

• 2x2 Table: Used to organize data for calculating measures like sensitivity, specificity, and risk. Example Table:

  	Disease Present	Disease Absent
  Exposed	a	b
  Not Exposed	c	d

  Relative Risk: $RR = \frac{a/(a+b)}{c/(c+d)}$

  Odds Ratio: $OR = \frac{a \times d}{b \times c}$

Key Terms and Phrases

Definitions

• Active Surveillance: Proactive search for cases.

• Blinding: Concealing group assignment in studies to reduce bias.

• Burden of Disease: Impact of health problems measured by financial cost, mortality, morbidity.

• Case Definition: Criteria for classifying a person as having a disease.

• Causation: Relationship between exposure and outcome.

• Confounding: Distortion of association by a third variable.

• Determinant: Factor influencing health.

• Disease Elimination: Reduction to zero of incidence in a defined area.

• Disease Eradication: Permanent reduction to zero worldwide.

• Epidemiology: Study of disease distribution and determinants.

• Etiology: Cause of disease.

• Evidence-Based: Using best available research for decisions.

• Exposure: Contact with a risk factor.

• Incidence: Number of new cases in a time period.

• Miasma: Outdated theory that disease is caused by "bad air".

• Morbidity: Rate of disease in a population.

• Mortality: Rate of death in a population.

• Passive Surveillance: Routine reporting by health providers.

• Placebo: Inactive substance used in trials.

• Prevalence: Total cases at a given time.

• Relative Risk: Ratio of risk in exposed vs. unexposed.

• Risk: Probability of an event.

• Risk Factor: Attribute increasing likelihood of disease.

• Surveillance: Ongoing collection and analysis of health data.

• Syndromic Surveillance: Monitoring symptoms for early outbreak detection.

• Vaccination: Administration of antigenic material to stimulate immunity.

• Variolation: Early method of immunization using smallpox material.

Summary Table: Key Epidemiological Measures

Measure	Definition	Formula
Incidence	New cases in a time period	$Incidence = \frac{\text{New cases}}{\text{Population at risk}}$
Prevalence	Total cases at a given time	$Prevalence = \frac{\text{Total cases}}{\text{Total population}}$
Relative Risk	Risk in exposed vs. unexposed	$RR = \frac{a/(a+b)}{c/(c+d)}$
Odds Ratio	Odds of exposure in cases vs. controls	$OR = \frac{a \times d}{b \times c}$

Additional info: This study guide is focused on public health, not Anatomy & Physiology specifically, but covers foundational concepts relevant to population health and epidemiology, which may be included in broader health science curricula.