1.
Chile
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Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a South American country occupying a long, narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, Chilean territory includes the Pacific islands of Juan Fernández, Salas y Gómez, Desventuradas, and Easter Island in Oceania. Chile also claims about 1,250,000 square kilometres of Antarctica, the arid Atacama Desert in northern Chile contains great mineral wealth, principally copper. Southern Chile is rich in forests and grazing lands, and features a string of volcanoes and lakes, the southern coast is a labyrinth of fjords, inlets, canals, twisting peninsulas, and islands. Spain conquered and colonized Chile in the century, replacing Inca rule in northern and central Chile. After declaring its independence from Spain in 1818, Chile emerged in the 1830s as a relatively stable authoritarian republic, in the 1960s and 1970s the country experienced severe left-right political polarization and turmoil. The regime, headed by Augusto Pinochet, ended in 1990 after it lost a referendum in 1988 and was succeeded by a coalition which ruled through four presidencies until 2010. Chile is today one of South Americas most stable and prosperous nations and it leads Latin American nations in rankings of human development, competitiveness, income per capita, globalization, state of peace, economic freedom, and low perception of corruption. It also ranks high regionally in sustainability of the state, Chile is a founding member of the United Nations, the Union of South American Nations and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. There are various theories about the origin of the word Chile, another theory points to the similarity of the valley of the Aconcagua with that of the Casma Valley in Peru, where there was a town and valley named Chili. Another origin attributed to chilli is the onomatopoeic cheele-cheele—the Mapuche imitation of the warble of a locally known as trile. The Spanish conquistadors heard about this name from the Incas, ultimately, Almagro is credited with the universalization of the name Chile, after naming the Mapocho valley as such. The older spelling Chili was in use in English until at least 1900 before switching over to Chile, stone tool evidence indicates humans sporadically frequented the Monte Verde valley area as long as 18,500 years ago. About 10,000 years ago, migrating Native Americans settled in fertile valleys, settlement sites from very early human habitation include Monte Verde, Cueva del Milodon and the Pali Aike Craters lava tube. They fought against the Sapa Inca Tupac Yupanqui and his army, the result of the bloody three-day confrontation known as the Battle of the Maule was that the Inca conquest of the territories of Chile ended at the Maule river. The next Europeans to reach Chile were Diego de Almagro and his band of Spanish conquistadors, the Spanish encountered various cultures that supported themselves principally through slash-and-burn agriculture and hunting. The conquest of Chile began in earnest in 1540 and was carried out by Pedro de Valdivia, one of Francisco Pizarros lieutenants, who founded the city of Santiago on 12 February 1541. Although the Spanish did not find the gold and silver they sought, they recognized the agricultural potential of Chiles central valley
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Public health
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It is concerned with threats to health based on population health analysis. The population in question can be as small as a handful of people, Public health incorporates the interdisciplinary approaches of epidemiology, biostatistics and health services. Environmental health, community health, behavioral health, health economics, public policy, mental health and occupational safety, the focus of public health intervention is to improve health and quality of life through prevention and treatment of disease and other physical and mental health conditions. This is done through surveillance of cases and health indicators, there is a great disparity in access to health care and public health initiatives between developed nations and developing nations. In the developing world, public health infrastructures are still forming, many diseases are preventable through simple, nonmedical methods. For example, research has shown that the act of hand washing with soap can prevent many contagious diseases. Public health communications programs, vaccination programs and distribution of condoms are examples of public health measures. Measures such as these have contributed greatly to the health of populations, Public health plays an important role in disease prevention efforts in both the developing world and in developed countries, through local health systems and non-governmental organizations. The World Health Organization is the agency that coordinates and acts on global public health issues. Most countries have their own government public health agencies, sometimes known as ministries of health, for example, in the United States, the front line of public health initiatives are state and local health departments. In Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada is the agency responsible for public health, emergency preparedness and response. The Public health system in India is managed by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare of the government of India with state-owned health care facilities. Public health programs providing vaccinations have made strides in promoting health, including the eradication of smallpox, antibiotic resistance, also known as drug resistance, was the theme of World Health Day 2011. Although the prioritization of pressing public health issues is important, Laurie Garrett argues that there are following consequences, when foreign aid is funnelled into disease-specific programs, the importance of public health in general is disregarded. This public health problem of stovepiping is thought to create a lack of funds to other existing diseases in a given country. For example, the WHO reports that at least 220 million people suffer from diabetes. Its incidence is increasing rapidly, and it is projected that the number of diabetes deaths will double by the year 2030, the risk of type 2 diabetes is closely linked with the growing problem of obesity. The WHO’s latest estimates highlighted that globally approximately 1.5 billion adults were overweight in 2008, the United States is the leading country with 30. 6% of its population being obese
3.
Social determinants of health
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The social determinants of health are the economic and social conditions and their distribution among the population that influence individual and group differences in health status. They are health promoting factors found in living and working conditions, rather than individual risk factors that influence the risk for a disease. According to some viewpoints, the distributions of social determinants are shaped by policies that reflect the influence of prevailing political ideologies of those governing a jurisdiction. They tend to cluster together – for example, those living in poverty also experience numerous other social determinants. The quality and equitable distribution of social determinants in Canada. The WHO later developed a Commission on Social Determinants of Health and this report identified two broad areas of social determinants of health that needed to be addressed. The first area was daily living conditions, which included healthy physical environments, fair employment and decent work, social protection across the lifespan, and access to health care. The 2011 World Conference on Social Determinants of Health brought together delegations from 125 member states and these include access to care and resources such as food, insurance coverage, income, housing, and transportation. Social determinants of health influence health-promoting behaviours, and health equity among the population is not possible without equitable distribution of social determinants among groups, woolf states, The degree to which social conditions affect health is illustrated by the association between education and mortality rates. Based on the data collected, the social conditions such as education, income, and race were very dependent on one another. Even in the wealthiest countries, there are economic inequalities in health between the rich and the poor, as a result, there is an uneven distribution of wealth and influence both within and across national borders, leading to negative impacts on the social determinants of health. International labor migration and the policies that attempt to regulate it can impact the health of only those that migrate. These inequalities may exist in the context of the care system. However, there is variation in health care systems and coverage from country to country. 7% of gross national product for official development assistance. The cultural/behavioural explanation was that individuals behavioural choices were responsible for their developing and dying from a variety of diseases, the materialist/structuralist explanation emphasizes the material conditions under which people live. These conditions include availability of resources to access the amenities of life, working conditions, within this view, three frameworks have been developed to explain how social determinants influence health. These frameworks are, materialist, neo-materialist, and psychosocial comparison, the materialist explanation is about how living conditions – and the social determinants of health that constitute these living conditions – shape health. The neo-materialist explanation extends the materialist analysis by asking how these living conditions come about, the psychosocial comparison explanation considers whether people compare themselves to others and how these comparisons affect health and wellbeing
4.
Rudolf Virchow
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Rudolf Ludwig Carl Virchow was a German physician, anthropologist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist, writer, editor, and politician, known for his advancement of public health. He is known as the father of modern pathology because his work helped to discredit humourism and he is also known as the founder of social medicine and veterinary pathology, and to his colleagues, the Pope of medicine. Born and raised in Schievelbein as a child of a working-class family. Dissuaded by his voice, he abandoned his initial interest in theology. With special military scholarship, he earned his degree from Friedrich-Wilhelms Institute under the tutelage of Johannes Peter Müller. He worked at the Charité hospital under Robert Froriep, whom he succeeded as the prosector. Although he failed to contain the 1847–1848 typhus epidemic in Upper Silesia, his report laid the foundation for health in Germany. From it, he coined a well known aphorism, Medicine is a social science and he participated in the Revolution of 1848, which led to his expulsion from Charité the next year. He published a newspaper Die medicinische Reform during this period to disseminate his social and political ideas and he took the first Chair of Pathological Anatomy at the University of Würzburg in 1849. After five years, Charité invited him back to direct its newly built Institute for Pathology, the campus of Charité is now named Campus Virchow Klinikum. He cofounded the political party Deutsche Fortschrittspartei, by which he was elected to the Prussian House of Representatives and his opposition to Otto von Bismarcks financial policy resulted in an anecdotal Sausage Duel between the two. But he ardently supported Bismarck in his campaigns, the social revolution he himself named as Kulturkampf. A prolific writer, his writings alone exceeded 2,000 in number. Among his books, Cellular Pathology published in 1858 is regarded as the root of modern pathology and this work also popularised the third dictum in cell theory, Omnis cellula e cellula, although his idea originated in 1855. He founded journals such as Archiv für pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie und für klinische Medizin, the latter is published by German Anthropological Association and the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory, the societies of which he also founded. Virchow was the first to describe and give names of diseases such as leukemia, chordoma, ochronosis, embolism. He coined scientific terms, chromatin, agenesis, parenchyma, osteoid, amyloid degeneration and his description of the transmission cycle of a roundworm Trichinella spiralis established the importance of meat inspection, which was started in Berlin. He developed the first systematic method of autopsy involving surgery of all body parts, a number of medical terms are named after him, including Virchows node, Virchow–Robin spaces, Virchow–Seckel syndrome, and Virchows triad
5.
Salvador Allende
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Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician, known as the first Marxist to become president of a Latin American country through open elections. Allendes involvement in Chilean political life spanned a period of forty years. As a member of the Socialist Party, he was a senator, deputy and he unsuccessfully ran for the presidency in the 1952,1958, and 1964 elections. In 1970, he won the presidency in a close three-way race and he was elected in a run-off by Congress as no candidate had gained a majority. A centre-right majority including the Christian Democrats, whose support had enabled Allendes election, denounced his rule as unconstitutional, on 11 September 1973, the military moved to oust Allende in a coup détat sponsored by the United States Central Intelligence Agency. As troops surrounded La Moneda Palace, he gave his last speech vowing not to resign, later that day, Allende committed suicide with an assault rifle, according to an investigation conducted by a Chilean court with the assistance of international experts in 2011. Allende was born on 26 June 1908 in Santiago and he was the son of Salvador Allende Castro and Laura Gossens Uribe. Allendes family belonged to the Chilean upper middle class and had a tradition of political involvement in progressive. His grandfather was a prominent physician and a social reformist who founded one of the first secular schools in Chile, Salvador Allende was of Belgian and Basque descent. Allende attended high school at the Liceo Eduardo de la Barra in Valparaíso, as a teenager, his main intellectual and political influence came from the shoe-maker Juan De Marchi, an Italian-born anarchist. Allende was an athlete in his youth, being a member of the Everton de Viña del Mar sports club. Allende then graduated with a degree in 1933 from the University of Chile. During his time at medical school Allende was influenced by Professor Max Westenhofer, Allende co-founded a section of the Socialist Party of Chile in Valparaíso and became its chairman. He married Hortensia Bussi with whom he had three daughters and he was a Freemason, a member of the Lodge Progreso No.4 in Valparaíso. In 1933, he published his doctoral thesis Higiene Mental y Delincuencia in which he criticized Cesare Lombrosos proposals, in 1938, Allende was in charge of the electoral campaign of the Popular Front headed by Pedro Aguirre Cerda. The Popular Fronts slogan was Bread, a Roof and Work, after its electoral victory, he became Minister of Health in the Reformist Popular Front government which was dominated by the Radicals. Upon entering the government, Allende relinquished his seat for Valparaíso. Around that time, he wrote La Realidad Médico Social de Chile, after the Kristallnacht in Nazi Germany, Allende was one of 76 members of the Congress who sent a telegram to Adolf Hitler denouncing the persecution of Jews
6.
Henry E. Sigerist
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Henry Ernest Sigerist was a Swiss medical historian. After graduating with an M. D. at the University of Zurich in 1917, socialized Medicine in the Soviet Union, and History of Medicine were among his most important works. He emerged as a spokesman for compulsory health insurance. From 1932 to 1947 he was director at Johns Hopkins University institute of history of medicine and he received financial aid from the Rockefeller Institute. He attacked the American Medical Association because of his views on socialized medicine. Dr. Sigerist was influential in the creation of socialized medicine in Canada and he made four trips to Canada in the 1930s and 1940s at the invitation of various medical groups to speak on this topic. This was the basis for the adoption of government funded health care in all of Canada. Sigerist died in 1957, and his passing was mourned among many in the medical community, although Sigerists influence waned during the mid 1900s, he has slowly become an important figure again in medical history. In 1999 an article in Hopkins Medical News described his view that the history of medicine was spiraling toward one inevitable end. And said that he invested all his enthusiasm on the wrong horse - the Soviet Union, works by or about Henry E. Sigerist at Internet Archive Henry E. Sigerist, Medical Historian and Social Visionary
7.
Paul Farmer
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In May 2009 he was named chairman of Harvard Medical Schools Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, succeeding Jim Yong Kim, his longtime friend and collaborator. Kim was appointed as of 2012 President of the World Bank, Farmer resides in Kigali, Rwanda as of 2008. He is board certified in internal medicine and infectious disease and he is editor-in-chief of Health and Human Rights Journal. In May 2009, Farmer was nominated to head the U. S, agency for International Development, but the nomination was withdrawn. In August 2009, Farmer was named United Nations Deputy Special Envoy to Haiti, to assist in improving the economic, Farmer was born in North Adams, Massachusetts and raised in Weeki Wachee, Florida. His brother is professional wrestler Jeff Farmer. He is a graduate of Hernando High School in Brooksville, Florida and he attended Duke University as a Benjamin N. Duke Scholar, graduating cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in medical anthropology. He attended Harvard University, earning an MD and a PhD in medical anthropology and he and his wife Didi have two daughters, Catherine and Elizabeth, and one son, Sebastian. On June 11,2014, Farmer endorsed fellow physician Don Berwick for Governor of Massachusetts, in 1987, Farmer, along with Ophelia Dahl, Jim Yong Kim, Thomas J. White and Todd McCormack, co-founded Partners In Health. PIH began in Cange in the Central Plateau of Haiti and it has developed into a worldwide health organization with a model for providing health care. The PIH hospital in Haiti provides free treatment to patients, PIH helps patients living in poverty to obtain effective drugs to treat tuberculosis and AIDS. In addition to his hospital in Haiti, Farmer oversees projects in Russia, Rwanda, Lesotho, Malawi and his approach has its basis in ethnographic analysis and real world practicality. Author Tracy Kidder wrote Mountains Beyond Mountains, The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World, which describes Farmers work in Haiti, Peru and it also covers his efforts to balance clinical and academic responsibilities with having a family. The book explores the interactions and conflicts that Farmer faced in continuing to work to healthcare for the poor in Haiti. Farmer is on the board of the Aristide Foundation for democracy, he is a co-founder and he is on the Board of PIVOT, a recently formed healthcare and research organization operating in Madagascar. He is a member of the Advisory Board of Incentives for Global Health and he also serves on the Global Advisory Council of GlobeMed, a student-driven global health organization that works through a partnership model. He was appointed as United Nations Secretary-Generals Special Adviser for Community-based Medicine, in October 2009, Farmer gave a lecture titled Development, Creating Sustainable Justice at the University of San Diegos Joan B
8.
Jim Yong Kim
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Jim Yong Kim MD, PhD, also known as Kim Yong, is a South Korean-American physician and anthropologist who has served as the 12th President of the World Bank since July 1,2012. Kim was named the worlds 50th most powerful person by Forbes Magazines List of The Worlds Most Powerful People in 2013. Born in Seoul, South Korea in 1959, Jim Yong Kim immigrated with his family to the U. S. at the age of five and grew up in Muscatine and his father taught dentistry at the University of Iowa, while his mother received her PhD in philosophy. Kim attended Muscatine High School, where he was valedictorian, president of his class, after a year and a half at the University of Iowa, he transferred to Brown University, where he graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in human biology in 1982. He was awarded an M. D. at Harvard Medical School in 1991, and he was among the first enrollees of Harvards experimental MD/PhD program in the social sciences. Jim Yong Kim, along with Paul Farmer, Todd McCormack, Thomas J. White and Ophelia Dahl, the organization began with radical new, community-focused health care programs in Haiti, which executed treatments based on local needs and by training community members to implement them. By the early 1990s, the program in Haiti was serving more than 100,000 people, Kim was instrumental in designing treatment protocols and cutting deals for cheaper, more effective drugs. The PIH model was expanded to Peru in 1994, Kims work with PIH to treat MDR-TB was the first large-scale attempt to treat the disease in a poor country, and the efforts have now been replicated in more than 40 countries around the world. PIH now employs more than 13,000 people in 12 countries, Kim left the organization as Executive Director in 2003. Kim left PIH in 2003 to join the World Health Organization as an adviser to the director-general, in March 2004, he was appointed as director of WHO’s HIV/AIDS department, after having success creating programs to fight the disease at PIH. Dr. Kim oversaw all of WHO’s work related to HIV/AIDS, focusing on initiatives to help developing countries scale up their treatment, prevention and this included an ambitious “3x5 initiative” that was designed to put three million people in developing countries on AIDS treatment by the end of 2005. The goal was not met until 2007, but according to the WHO, as of 2012, the program has treated more than 7 million Africans with HIV. Beginning in 1993, Dr. Kim served as a lecturer at Harvard Medical School, eventually holding professorships in medicine, social medicine, over his two decade career working to improve health in developing countries, Kim has been involved in a number of research and academic efforts. In recent years, Kim spearheaded the development of a new field focused on improving the implementation and this new field will rigorously gather, analyze, and widely disseminate a comprehensive body of practical, actionable insights on effective global health delivery. The global health field case studies produced by this form the core of a new global health delivery curriculum now taught at Harvard School of Public Health. An expert in tuberculosis, Kim also chaired or served on a number of committees on international TB policy, in March 2009, Kim was named the 17th President of Dartmouth College, becoming the first Asian-American to assume the post of president at an Ivy League institution. Kim has overseen the development of innovative programs at Dartmouth, utilizing his past experience in health care. In April 2010, Kim launched the National College Health Improvement Project, the project launched its inaugural program, an effort to address binge drinking, in April 2011
9.
Epidemiology
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Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the patterns, causes, and effects of health and disease conditions in defined populations. It is the cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evidence-based practice by identifying risk factors for disease, epidemiologists help with study design, collection, and statistical analysis of data, amend interpretation and dissemination of results. Epidemiology has helped develop methodology used in research, public health studies. However, the term is used in studies of zoological populations, although the term epizoology is available. The distinction between epidemic and endemic was first drawn by Hippocrates, to distinguish between diseases that are visited upon a population from those that reside within a population. The term epidemiology appears to have first been used to describe the study of epidemics in 1802 by the Spanish physician Villalba in Epidemiología Española, epidemiologists also study the interaction of diseases in a population, a condition known as a syndemic. Therefore, this epidemiology is based upon how the pattern of the disease cause changes in the function of everyone, Hippocrates believed sickness of the human body to be caused by an imbalance of the four humors. The cure to the sickness was to remove or add the humor in question to balance the body and this belief led to the application of bloodletting and dieting in medicine. He coined the terms endemic and epidemic, in the middle of the 16th century, a doctor from Verona named Girolamo Fracastoro was the first to propose a theory that these very small, unseeable, particles that cause disease were alive. They were considered to be able to spread by air, multiply by themselves, in this way he refuted Galens miasma theory. In 1543 he wrote a book De contagione et contagiosis morbis, the development of a sufficiently powerful microscope by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in 1675 provided visual evidence of living particles consistent with a germ theory of disease. Wu Youke developed the concept that some diseases were caused by transmissible agents and his book Wenyi Lun can be regarded as the main etiological work that brought forward the concept, ultimately attributed to Westerners, of germs as a cause of epidemic diseases. His concepts are considered in current scientific research in relation to Traditional Chinese Medicine studies. Another pioneer, Thomas Sydenham, was the first to distinguish the fevers of Londoners in the later 1600s and his theories on cures of fevers met with much resistance from traditional physicians at the time. He was not able to find the cause of the smallpox fever he researched and treated. John Graunt, a haberdasher and amateur statistician, published Natural and Political Observations, upon the Bills of Mortality in 1662. In it, he analysed the mortality rolls in London before the Great Plague, presented one of the first life tables and he provided statistical evidence for many theories on disease, and also refuted some widespread ideas on them. John Snow is famous for his investigations into the causes of the 19th century cholera epidemics and he began with noticing the significantly higher death rates in two areas supplied by Southwark Company
10.
Medical sociology
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The field commonly interacts with the sociology of knowledge, science and technology studies, and social epistemology. Health disparities commonly relate to categories such as class and race. Objective sociological research findings quickly become a normative and political issue, early work in medical sociology was conducted by Lawrence J Henderson whose theoretical interests in the work of Vilfredo Pareto inspired Talcott Parsons interests in sociological systems theory. Parsons is one of the fathers of medical sociology. The introduction of ‘social’ factors into medical explanation was most strongly evidenced in branches of medicine closely related to the community — Social Medicine and, later, Medical sociology can trace its intellectual lineage to the late 1800s. In the nineteenth century, two nascent disciplines — sociology and allopathic medicine — began to cross paths, for allopathic medicine, this time period witnessed the beginnings of medicine’s ongoing attempts to consolidate its professional powers and social legitimacy. Meanwhile, sociology was beginning to emerge as a distinct discipline, the first publication which formally linked medicine and sociology was The Importance of the Study of Medical Sociology”, authored by Charles McIntire and first published in 1894. Two key books followed, Elizabeth Blackwells Essays in Medical Sociology, the first journal to focus on medical sociology was the Journal of Sociological Medicine, which was published by the American Academy of Medicine, and existing for four years between 1915 and 1919. The American Public Health Association hosted a similar “Section of Sociology” between 1909 and 1921 and it took another quarter century before the next medical sociology journal would appear. Scattered “sociology of medicine” articles would continue to appear infrequently in medical journals between 1920 and 1950, in 1960, Austin Porterfield published what would become the first substantive disciplinary journal in medical sociology, the Journal of Health & Human Behavior. In the spring of 1967, the American Sociological Association took JHHB under its organizational wing where it was renamed the Journal of Health, eliot Freidson was the first editor. This same year marked the first issue of Social Science & Medicine, with its distinctively international. By the early 1970s, the sociology section of the British Sociological Association had established its own organizational footprint. During the 1950s and 1960s, the field of medical sociology underwent a period of growth—before peaking in the early 1970s. The number of stipends was well in excess of what was needed to support medical sociology graduate students, even the founding of the medical sociology section itself and the ASA’s decision to adopt the JHSB were underwritten by outside funding. Membership in the new ASA section was mercurial, in less than a year, the medical sociology section grew to 561 members. By 1964, membership had soared to nearly 900, in less than a half dozen years, the field went from publishing introductions to the field to summative reviews. By the mid-1970s, however, there were signs of trouble, established funding streams had dried up and were not replaced by alternative resources
11.
Social determinants of health in poverty
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The social determinants of health in poverty describe the factors that affect impoverished populations health and health inequality. These conditions are also shaped by political, social, and economic structures, the majority of people around the globe do not meet their potential best health because of a toxic combination of bad policies, economics, and politics. Daily living conditions work together with these structural drivers to result in the determinants of health. Poverty and poor health are inseparably linked, according to Loppie and Wien, these health afflictions of poverty most burden outlying groups such as women, children, ethnic minorities, and the disabled. Social determinants of health – like child development, education, living and working conditions, therefore, the conditions of individuals daily life are responsible for the social determinants of health and a major part of health inequities between and within countries. Social determinants of disease can be attributed to social forces such as racism, gender inequality, poverty, violence. This is important because health quality, health distribution, and social protection of health in a population affect the development status of a nation, since health has been considered a fundamental human right, one author suggests the social determinants of health determine the distribution of human dignity. Social determinants of health in poverty reveal inequalities in health, Health is defined as feeling sound, well, vigorous, and physically able to do things that most people ordinarily can do. More generally, the WHO considers the circumstances of life and structural drivers. Different exposures and vulnerabilities to disease and injury determined by social, occupational, structural drivers, on the other hand, include stratification in society, biases and societal norms, economic and social policy, and governance. These themes are condensed into a structure of defining the social determinants of health in poverty. The World Health Organizations Social Determinants Council recognized two distinct forms of social determinants for health- social position and socioeconomic and political context, the following divisions are adapted from World Health Organizations Social Determinants Conceptual Framework for explaining and understanding social determinants of health. Within the impoverished population exists a range of real income, from less than $2 USD a day, to the United States poverty threshold. Within impoverished populations, being relatively versus absolutely impoverished can determine health outcomes, in their severity, according to the World Health Organization, the poorest of all, globally, are the least healthy. As such, two broad categories distinguish between relative severity of poverty and it is measured in relation to the poverty line or the lowest amount of money needed to sustain human life. Relative poverty is the inability to afford the goods, services, relative poverty still results in bad health outcomes because of the diminished agency of the impoverished. According to Mosley, these factors prove challenging to individuals in poverty and are responsible for health deficits amongst the general impoverished population, having sufficient access to a minimum amount of food that is nutritious and sanitary plays an important part in building health and reducing disease transmission. Access to sufficient amounts of quality water for drinking, bathing, availability of fuel for adequate sterilizing of eating utensils and food and the preservation of food proves necessary to promote health
12.
Social psychology
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Social psychology is the scientific study of how peoples thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. In this definition, scientific refers to the method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all psychological variables that are measurable in a human being, Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the interaction of mental states and immediate social situations. Social psychology is a discipline that had traditionally bridged the gap between psychology and sociology, during the years immediately following World War II there was frequent collaboration between psychologists and sociologists. However, the two disciplines have become increasingly specialized and isolated from other in recent years, with sociologists focusing on macro variables to a much greater extent. Nevertheless, sociological approaches to social psychology remain an important counterpart to psychological research in this area, in addition to the split between psychology and sociology, there has been a somewhat less pronounced difference in emphasis between American social psychologists and European social psychologists. As a generalization, American researchers traditionally have focused more on the individual, however, the discipline had already developed a significant foundation. Following the 18th century, those in the field of social psychology were concerned with developing concrete explanations for different aspects of human nature. They desired to discover concrete cause and effect relationships that explained the social interactions in the world around them, in order to do so, they believed that the scientific method, an empirically based scientific measure, could be applied to human behavior. The first published study in this area was an experiment in 1898 by Norman Triplett, during the 1930s, many Gestalt psychologists, most notably Kurt Lewin, fled to the United States from Nazi Germany. Attitudes and small group phenomena were the most commonly studied topics in this era, during World War II, social psychologists studied persuasion and propaganda for the U. S. military. After the war, researchers interested in a variety of social problems, including gender issues. Most notable, revealing, and contentious of these were the Stanley Milgram shock experiments on obedience to authority, in the sixties, there was growing interest in new topics, such as cognitive dissonance, bystander intervention, and aggression. By the 1970s, however, social psychology in America had reached a crisis, there was heated debate over the ethics of laboratory experimentation, whether or not attitudes really predicted behavior, and how much science could be done in a cultural context. This was also the time when a radical situationist approach challenged the relevance of self, throughout the 1980s and 1990s social psychology reached a more mature level. Two of the social psychology matured in were theories and methods. Careful ethical standards now regulate research, pluralistic and multicultural perspectives have emerged. Modern researchers are interested in many phenomena, but attribution, social cognition, Social psychologists have also maintained their applied interests with contributions in health, environmental, and legal psychology
13.
Society for Social Medicine
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The Society for Social Medicine is the primary organization for researchers in social, community, and public health in the UK and Ireland, founded in London in 1956. The main aim of the society is to research, development and training in a range of segments such as epidemiology, medical. To advance knowledge for population health, membership is open to individuals anyone who is interested in the societys aims. There is a process whereby prospective members are put forward for consideration by current members. Applicants who do not any current members can also apply however, the Society holds an Annual Scientific Meeting each year in the British Isles. The conference proceedings and abstracts are published in a supplement of the Journal of Epidemiology
14.
International Standard Serial Number
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An International Standard Serial Number is an eight-digit serial number used to uniquely identify a serial publication. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title, ISSN are used in ordering, cataloging, interlibrary loans, and other practices in connection with serial literature. The ISSN system was first drafted as an International Organization for Standardization international standard in 1971, ISO subcommittee TC 46/SC9 is responsible for maintaining the standard. When a serial with the content is published in more than one media type. For example, many serials are published both in print and electronic media, the ISSN system refers to these types as print ISSN and electronic ISSN, respectively. The format of the ISSN is an eight digit code, divided by a hyphen into two four-digit numbers, as an integer number, it can be represented by the first seven digits. The last code digit, which may be 0-9 or an X, is a check digit. Formally, the form of the ISSN code can be expressed as follows, NNNN-NNNC where N is in the set, a digit character. The ISSN of the journal Hearing Research, for example, is 0378-5955, where the final 5 is the check digit, for calculations, an upper case X in the check digit position indicates a check digit of 10. To confirm the check digit, calculate the sum of all eight digits of the ISSN multiplied by its position in the number, the modulus 11 of the sum must be 0. There is an online ISSN checker that can validate an ISSN, ISSN codes are assigned by a network of ISSN National Centres, usually located at national libraries and coordinated by the ISSN International Centre based in Paris. The International Centre is an organization created in 1974 through an agreement between UNESCO and the French government. The International Centre maintains a database of all ISSNs assigned worldwide, at the end of 2016, the ISSN Register contained records for 1,943,572 items. ISSN and ISBN codes are similar in concept, where ISBNs are assigned to individual books, an ISBN might be assigned for particular issues of a serial, in addition to the ISSN code for the serial as a whole. An ISSN, unlike the ISBN code, is an identifier associated with a serial title. For this reason a new ISSN is assigned to a serial each time it undergoes a major title change, separate ISSNs are needed for serials in different media. Thus, the print and electronic versions of a serial need separate ISSNs. Also, a CD-ROM version and a web version of a serial require different ISSNs since two different media are involved, however, the same ISSN can be used for different file formats of the same online serial
15.
PubMed Identifier
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PubMed is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health maintains the database as part of the Entrez system of information retrieval, from 1971 to 1997, MEDLINE online access to the MEDLARS Online computerized database primarily had been through institutional facilities, such as university libraries. PubMed, first released in January 1996, ushered in the era of private, free, home-, the PubMed system was offered free to the public in June 1997, when MEDLINE searches via the Web were demonstrated, in a ceremony, by Vice President Al Gore. Information about the journals indexed in MEDLINE, and available through PubMed, is found in the NLM Catalog. As of 5 January 2017, PubMed has more than 26.8 million records going back to 1966, selectively to the year 1865, and very selectively to 1809, about 500,000 new records are added each year. As of the date,13.1 million of PubMeds records are listed with their abstracts. In 2016, NLM changed the system so that publishers will be able to directly correct typos. Simple searches on PubMed can be carried out by entering key aspects of a subject into PubMeds search window, when a journal article is indexed, numerous article parameters are extracted and stored as structured information. Such parameters are, Article Type, Secondary identifiers, Language, publication type parameter enables many special features. As these clinical girish can generate small sets of robust studies with considerable precision, since July 2005, the MEDLINE article indexing process extracts important identifiers from the article abstract and puts those in a field called Secondary Identifier. The secondary identifier field is to store numbers to various databases of molecular sequence data, gene expression or chemical compounds. For clinical trials, PubMed extracts trial IDs for the two largest trial registries, ClinicalTrials. gov and the International Standard Randomized Controlled Trial Number Register, a reference which is judged particularly relevant can be marked and related articles can be identified. If relevant, several studies can be selected and related articles to all of them can be generated using the Find related data option, the related articles are then listed in order of relatedness. To create these lists of related articles, PubMed compares words from the title and abstract of each citation, as well as the MeSH headings assigned, using a powerful word-weighted algorithm. The related articles function has been judged to be so precise that some researchers suggest it can be used instead of a full search, a strong feature of PubMed is its ability to automatically link to MeSH terms and subheadings. Examples would be, bad breath links to halitosis, heart attack to myocardial infarction, where appropriate, these MeSH terms are automatically expanded, that is, include more specific terms. Terms like nursing are automatically linked to Nursing or Nursing and this important feature makes PubMed searches automatically more sensitive and avoids false-negative hits by compensating for the diversity of medical terminology. The My NCBI area can be accessed from any computer with web-access, an earlier version of My NCBI was called PubMed Cubby
16.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
17.
OCLC
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The Online Computer Library Center is a US-based nonprofit cooperative organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the worlds information and reducing information costs. It was founded in 1967 as the Ohio College Library Center, OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the largest online public access catalog in the world. OCLC is funded mainly by the fees that libraries have to pay for its services, the group first met on July 5,1967 on the campus of the Ohio State University to sign the articles of incorporation for the nonprofit organization. The group hired Frederick G. Kilgour, a former Yale University medical school librarian, Kilgour wished to merge the latest information storage and retrieval system of the time, the computer, with the oldest, the library. The goal of network and database was to bring libraries together to cooperatively keep track of the worlds information in order to best serve researchers and scholars. The first library to do online cataloging through OCLC was the Alden Library at Ohio University on August 26,1971 and this was the first occurrence of online cataloging by any library worldwide. Membership in OCLC is based on use of services and contribution of data, between 1967 and 1977, OCLC membership was limited to institutions in Ohio, but in 1978, a new governance structure was established that allowed institutions from other states to join. In 2002, the structure was again modified to accommodate participation from outside the United States. As OCLC expanded services in the United States outside of Ohio, it relied on establishing strategic partnerships with networks, organizations that provided training, support, by 2008, there were 15 independent United States regional service providers. OCLC networks played a key role in OCLC governance, with networks electing delegates to serve on OCLC Members Council, in early 2009, OCLC negotiated new contracts with the former networks and opened a centralized support center. OCLC provides bibliographic, abstract and full-text information to anyone, OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat—the OCLC Online Union Catalog, the largest online public access catalog in the world. WorldCat has holding records from public and private libraries worldwide. org, in October 2005, the OCLC technical staff began a wiki project, WikiD, allowing readers to add commentary and structured-field information associated with any WorldCat record. The Online Computer Library Center acquired the trademark and copyrights associated with the Dewey Decimal Classification System when it bought Forest Press in 1988, a browser for books with their Dewey Decimal Classifications was available until July 2013, it was replaced by the Classify Service. S. The reference management service QuestionPoint provides libraries with tools to communicate with users and this around-the-clock reference service is provided by a cooperative of participating global libraries. OCLC has produced cards for members since 1971 with its shared online catalog. OCLC commercially sells software, e. g. CONTENTdm for managing digital collections, OCLC has been conducting research for the library community for more than 30 years. In accordance with its mission, OCLC makes its research outcomes known through various publications and these publications, including journal articles, reports, newsletters, and presentations, are available through the organizations website. The most recent publications are displayed first, and all archived resources, membership Reports – A number of significant reports on topics ranging from virtual reference in libraries to perceptions about library funding
18.
Biological hazard
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Biological hazards, also known as biohazards, refer to biological substances that pose a threat to the health of living organisms, primarily that of humans. This can include medical waste or samples of a microorganism, virus or toxin that can affect human health and it can also include substances harmful to other animals. The term and its symbol are generally used as a warning. The biohazard symbol was developed in 1966 by Charles Baldwin, an engineer working for the Dow Chemical Company on the containment products. It is used in the labeling of biological materials that carry a significant health risk, including viral samples, in Unicode, the biohazard symbol is U+2623. Category B, UN3373 – Biological substance transported for diagnostic or investigative purposes, regulated Medical Waste, UN3291 – Waste or reusable material derived from medical treatment of an animal or human, or from biomedical research, which includes the production and testing. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention categorizes various diseases in levels of biohazard, Level 1 being minimum risk, Laboratories and other facilities are categorized as BSL 1-4 or as P1 through P4 for short. Biohazard Level 1, Bacteria and viruses including Bacillus subtilis, canine hepatitis, Escherichia coli, varicella, as well as cell cultures. At this level precautions against the materials in question are minimal, most likely involving gloves. Routine diagnostic work with clinical specimens can be done safely at Biosafety Level 2, research work can be done in a BSL-2 facility, using BSL-3 practices and procedures. Variola virus is an agent that is worked with at BSL-4 despite the existence of a vaccine, when dealing with biological hazards at this level the use of a positive pressure personnel suit, with a segregated air supply, is mandatory. Multiple airlocks are employed and are secured to prevent both doors opening at the same time. All air and water going to and coming from a Biosafety Level 4 lab will undergo similar decontamination procedures to eliminate the possibility of an accidental release. Currently there are no bacteria classified at this level, the biohazard symbol was developed by the Dow Chemical Company in 1966 for their containment products. In an article he wrote for Science in 1967, the symbol was presented as the new standard for all biological hazards, the chosen symbol scored the best on nationwide testing for memorability. The design was first specified in 39 FR23680 but was dropped in the succeeding amendment, however, various US states adopted the specification for their state code. Biological agent Biosafety level Biocontainment Planetary protection and Interplanetary contamination Public health Biosafety in Microbiological and Biomedical Laboratories, Prevention of Biological Hazards, EU-OSHA Symbol Making, an account of the development of the symbol in 1966. BioSeal Systems, Biosafety level 4 containment, Biohazard Remediation Compliance Overview Example of Reclassified Biohazard to Level 4, article from The Lancet concerning the reclassification of Ebola after observation
19.
Cultural competence in healthcare
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Cultural competence in healthcare refers to the ability for healthcare systems to demonstrate cultural competence toward patients with diverse values, beliefs, and behaviors. This process includes consideration of the social, cultural. In 2002, cultural competence in health care emerged as a field and has been embedded into medical education curriculum since then. Although cultural competence in healthcare is a concept, this article focuses on cultural competence as practiced in the United States. By definition, diversity includes differences in race, ethnicity, age, gender, size, religion, sexual orientation, accordingly, organizations should include these considerations in all aspects of policy making, administration, practice, and service delivery. Cultural competence involves more than having sensitivity or awareness of cultures and it necessitates an active process of learning and developing skills to engage effectively in cross-cultural situations and re-evaluating these skills over time. Cultural competence is used interchangeably with the term cultural competency. The challenges for American healthcare systems to meet the needs of the increasing number of diverse patients are becoming very obvious. Despite improvements and progress seen in areas, minorities are still underrepresented within both healthcare leadership and workforce. According to the survey of the U. S. healthcare leaders conducted by the search firm Witt/Kieffer. They associated it with improved patient satisfaction, successful decision-making, improved clinical outcomes, to provide culturally sensitive patient-centered care, physicians should treat each patient as an individual, recognizing and respecting his or her beliefs, values and care seeking behaviors. However, many lack the awareness of or training in cultural competence. With the constantly changing demographics, their patients are increasingly getting diverse as well and it is utterly important to educate physicians to be culturally competent so that they can effectively treat patients of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. In response to the diverse population, several states have passed legislation requiring or strongly recommending cultural competency training for physicians. Physicians responses to this CME requirement varied, both positively and negatively, but the overall feedback was positive towards the outcomes of participation in and satisfaction with the programs. They should also realize that their clinical care process could also be influenced by their own personal and professional experiences as well as biomedical culture. Dr. Cultural competence can be crucial for ensuring that the sampling is representative of the population and it is important that a studys subject enrollment reflect as closely as possible the target population of those affected by the health problem being studied. Culture is definitely beyond ethnicity and race, discovering our own beliefs and why we have them helps understand what is believed and actions at time when others are cared firwith different beliefs
20.
Deviance (sociology)
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In sociology, deviance describes an action or behavior that violates social norms, including a formally enacted rule, as well as informal violations of social norms. It is the purview of criminologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and sociologists to study how these norms are created, how they change over time, norms are rules and expectations by which members of society are conventionally guided. Deviance is an absence of conformity to these norms, social norms differ from culture to culture. For example, a deviant act can be committed in one society that breaks a social norm there, Deviance can be relative to place and time because what is considered deviant in one social context may be non-deviant in another. Killing another human is considered wrong, except when governments permit it during warfare or for self defense, deviant actions can be mala in se or mala prohibita. Three broad sociological classes exist that describe deviant behavior, namely, structural functionalism, symbolic interaction, social integration is the attachment to groups and institutions, while social regulation is the adherence to the norms and values of the society. Those who are very integrated fall under the category of altruism, similarly, those who are very regulated fall under fatalism and those who are very unregulated fall under anomie. Durkheims theory attributes social deviance to extremes of the dimensions of the social bond, altruistic suicide, egoistic suicide, and anomic suicide are the three forms of suicide that can happen due to extremes. Durkheim claimed that deviance was in fact a normal and necessary part of social organization, when he studied deviance he stated four important functions of deviance. Deviance affirms cultural values and norms, any definition of virtue rests on an opposing idea of vice, There can be no good without evil and no justice without crime. Deviance defines moral boundaries, people learn right from wrong by defining people as deviant, a serious form of deviance forces people to come together and react in the same way against it. Deviance pushes societys moral boundaries which, in turn leads to social change, robert K. Merton discussed deviance in terms of goals and means as part of his strain/anomie theory. He postulated that a response to societal expectations and the means by which the individual pursued those goals were useful in understanding deviance. Often, non-routine collective behavior is said to map onto economic explanations, Merton described 5 types of deviance in terms of the acceptance or rejection of social goals and the institutionalized means of achieving them,1. Innovators accept societys goals, but reject socially acceptable means of achieving them, conformists accept societys goals and the socially acceptable means of achieving them. Ritualism refers to the inability to reach a cultural goal thus embracing the rules to the point where the people in question lose sight of their goals in order to feel respectable. Ritualists reject societys goals, but accept societys institutionalised means, ritualists are most commonly found in dead-end, repetitive jobs, where they are unable to achieve societys goals but still adhere to societys means of achievement and social norms. Retreatism is the rejection of both goals and means, letting the person in question drop out
21.
Environmental health
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Environmental health is the branch of public health that is concerned with all aspects of the natural and built environment that may affect human health. Other terms referring to or concerning environmental health are environmental public health, Environmental health and environmental protection are very much related. Environmental health has been defined in a 1999 document by the World Health Organization as, Those aspects of the human health and it also refers to the theory and practice of assessing and controlling factors in the environment that can potentially affect health. It encompasses the assessment and control of environmental factors that can potentially affect health. It is targeted towards preventing disease and creating health-supportive environments and this definition excludes behaviour not related to environment, as well as behaviour related to the social and cultural environment, as well as genetics. The WHO has also defined environmental health services as services which implement environmental health policies through monitoring. They also carry out that role by promoting the improvement of environmental parameters and by encouraging the use of environmentally friendly and healthy technologies and they also have a leading role in developing and suggesting new policy areas. The term environmental medicine may be seen as a medical specialty, terminology is not fully established, and in many European countries they are used interchangeably. Environmental health professionals may be known as environmental health officers, public health inspectors, environmental specialists, environmental health practitioners. Researchers and policy-makers also play important roles in how environmental health is practiced in the field, in many European countries, physicians and veterinarians are involved in environmental health. Many states in the United States also require that individuals have a bachelors degree, the environmental health profession had its modern-day roots in the sanitary and public health movement of the United Kingdom. Five basic disciplines generally contribute to the field of health, environmental epidemiology, toxicology, exposure science, environmental engineering. Each of these disciplines contributes different information to describe problems and solutions in environmental health, Environmental epidemiology studies the relationship between environmental exposures and human health. Toxicology studies how environmental exposures lead to health outcomes, generally in animals. Toxicology has the advantage of being able to conduct randomized controlled trials, however there are many differences in animal and human biology, and there can be a lot of uncertainty when interpreting the results of animal studies for their implications for human health. Exposure science studies human exposure to environmental contaminants by both identifying and quantifying exposures, Environmental law includes the network of treaties, statutes, regulations, common and customary laws addressing the effects of human activity on the natural environment. This can in turn be used to develop and implement environmental policy that, for example, regulates chemical emissions. Environmental health addresses all human-health-related aspects of the environment and the built environment
22.
Euthenics
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Euthenics /juːˈθɛnɪks/ is the study of the improvement of human functioning and well-being by improvement of living conditions. Rose Field notes of the definition in a May 23,1926 New York Times article, the Flynn effect has been often cited as an example of euthenics. Another example is the increase in body size in industrialized countries since the beginning of the 20th century. The term was derived in the late 19th century from the Greek verb eutheneo, also from the Greek Euthenia, Εὐθηνία. Good state of the body, prosperity, good fortune, abundance. —Herodotus, the opposite of Euthenia is Penia, Πενία the personification of poverty and need. Ellen H. Swallow Richards was one of the first writers to use the term, in The Cost of Shelter and it is unclear if any of the study programs of euthenics ever completely embraced Richards multidisciplinary concept, though several nuances remain today, especially that of interdisciplinarity. After Richards death in 1911, Julia Lathrop - one of Vassars most distinguished alumnae - continued to promote the development of a program in euthenics at the college. Lathrop soon teamed with alumna Minnie Cumnock Blodgett, who with her husband, John Wood Blodgett, curriculum planning, suggested by Vassar president Henry Noble MacCracken in 1922, began in earnest by 1923, under the direction of Professor Annie Louise Macleod. According to Vassars chronology entry for March 17,1924, the faculty recognized euthenics as a field for sequential study. With the new division came the first major in child study at an American liberal arts college, the Vassar Summer Institute of Euthenics accepted its first students in June 1926. Created to supplement the controversial euthenics major which began February 21,1925, some Vassar faculty members contentiously believed the entire concept of euthenics was vague and counter-productive to womens progress. Having overcome a lukewarm reception, Vassar College officially opened its Minnie Cumnock Blodgett Hall of Euthenics in 1929, Dr. Ruth Wheeler took over as director of euthenics studies in 1924. Wheeler remained director until Mary Shattuck Fisher Langmuir succeeded her in 1944, the college continued for the 1934–35 academic year its successful cooperative housing experiment in three residence halls. Intended to help meet their college costs by working in their residences. For example, in Main, students earned $40 a year by doing relatively light work such as cleaning their rooms. In 1951, Katharine Blodgett Hadley donated $400,000, through the Rubicon Foundation, to Vassar to help fund operating deficits in the current and succeeding years and to improve faculty salaries. Discontinued for financial reasons, the Vassar Summer Institute for Family and Community Living, founded in 1926 as the Vassar Summer Institute of Euthenics, held its last session and this was the first and last session for the institutes new director, Dr. Mervin Freedman. Elmira College is noted as the oldest college still in existence which granted degrees to women which were the equivalent of those given to men, Elmira College became coeducational in all of its programs in 1969
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Public health genomics
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Public Health Genomics is the use of genomics information to benefit public health. This is visualized as more effective personalized preventive care and disease treatments with better specificity, according to the CDC, Public Health genomics is an emerging field of study that assesses the impact of genes and their interaction with behavior, diet and the environment on the population’s health. This field of public health genomics is less than a decade old, a number of think tanks, universities, and governments have started public health genomics projects. Research on the genome is generating new knowledge that is changing public health programs. Advances in genomic sciences are increasingly being used to improve health, prevent disease, educate and train the public workforce, other healthcare providers. Main public concerns in genomic information are that of Confidentiality Misuse of information Right, one of the many facets involved in Public Health Genomics is the ethical area. In 2003, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics published a report, Pharmacogenetics, authors of the document explore four broad categories of ethical and policy issues related to pharmacogenetics, information, resource, equity and control. Single nucleotide polymorphisms are single bases within a sequence that differ from that genes consensus sequence. SNPs may have no effect on expression, or they can change the function of a gene completely. Resulting gene expression changes can, in cases, result in disease. A select few are explored below, since the field of genomics takes into account the entire genome of an organism and not simply its individual genes, the study of latent viral infection falls into this realm. An example of this is found in a study published in Nature, mice were infected with murine gammherpesvirus 68 and then challenged with Listeria monocytogenes. The mice that had a latent infection of the virus had a resistance to the bacteria. The study went on to test mice with murine cytomegalovirus, a member of the betaherpesvirinae subfamily, however, infection with human herpes simplex virus type-1, a member of the alphaherpesvirinae subfamily, did not provide increased resistance to bacterial infection. They also used Yersinia pestis to challenge mice with a latent infection of gammaherpesvirus 68 and it was found that the latent herpesvirus caused an increase in interferon-gamma and tumor necrosis factor-alpha, both of which lead to activation of macrophages and resistance to bacterial infection. If this is true, then our current concepts of immunology as it pertains to resisting bacterial infections would need to be recalculated to consider the additional herpesvirus DNA in our genomes, variations within the human genome can be and are studied to determine susceptibility to infectious diseases. The study of variations within microbial genomes will also need to be evaluated to use genomics of infectious disease within public health, several infectious diseases have shown a link between genetics and susceptibility in that families tend to have heritability traits of a disease. During the course of the past influenza pandemics and the current influenza epizootic there has been evidence of family clusters of disease, kandun, et al. found that family clusters in Indonesia in 2005 resulted in mild, severe and fatal cases among family members
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Globalization and disease
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Globalization, the flow of information, goods, capital, and people across political and geographic boundaries, has helped spread some of the deadliest infectious diseases known to humans. The spread of diseases across wide geographic scales has increased through history, early diseases that spread from Asia to Europe were bubonic plague, influenza of various types, and similar infectious diseases. In the current era of globalization, the world is more interdependent than at any other time, globalization intensified during the Age of Exploration, but trading routes had long been established between Asia and Europe, along which diseases were also transmitted. An increase in travel has helped spread diseases to natives of lands who had not previously been exposed. When a native population is infected with a new disease, where they have not developed antibodies through generations of previous exposure, as humans began traveling over seas and across lands which were previously isolated, research suggests that diseases have been spread by all five transmission modes. The Age of Exploration generally refers to the period between the 15th and 17th centuries, during this time, technological advances in shipbuilding and navigation made it easier for nations to explore outside previous boundaries. In addition to trading in goods, many began to trade in slavery. Trading in slaves was another way by which diseases were carried to new locations and peoples, for instance, from sub-Saharan Africa to the Caribbean, early medicine often included the use of herbs and meditation. Based on archeological evidence, some practitioners in both Europe and South America used trephining, making a hole in the skull to release illness. Severe diseases were thought of as supernatural or magical. The result of the introduction of Eurasian diseases to the Americas was that many native peoples were killed by disease. Scholars estimate that over a period of four centuries, epidemic diseases wiped out as much as 90 percent of the American indigenous populations. In Europe during the age of exploration, diseases such as smallpox, measles and tuberculosis had already been introduced centuries before through trade with Asia, people had developed some antibodies to these and other diseases from the Eurasian continent. When the Europeans traveled to new lands, they carried these diseases with them, when such diseases were introduced for the first time to new populations of humans, the effects on the native populations were widespread and deadly. It was not until the 1800s that humans began to recognize the existence and role of germs, although many thinkers had ideas about germs, it was not until Louis Pasteur spread his theory about germs, and the need for washing hands and maintaining sanitation, that anyone listened. Many people were skeptical, but on May 22,1881 Pasteur persuasively demonstrated the validity of his germ theory of disease with an early example of vaccination. The anthrax vaccine was administered to 25 sheep while another 25 were used as a control, on May 31,1881 all of the sheep were exposed to anthrax. While every sheep in the group died, each of the vaccinated sheep survived
25.
Health literacy
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Health literacy is the ability to obtain, read, understand and use healthcare information to make appropriate health decisions and follow instructions for treatment. Studies reveal that only 12 percent of the adults in the U. S. have proficient health literacy and this means 77 million adults have basic or below basic health literacy. These individuals have difficulty with common health tasks including reading the label of a prescribed drug, low health literacy reduces the success of treatment and increases the risk of medical error. Health literacy is essential to healthy individuals and communities. Health literacy is of continued and increasing concern for health professionals, the proportion of adults aged 18 and over in the U. S. in the year 2010, who reported that their health care providers always explained things so they could understand them was about 60. 6%. This number increased 1% from 2007 to 2010, the Healthy People 2020 initiative of the United States Department of Health and Human Services has included it as a pressing new topic, with objectives for addressing it in the decade to come. Society as a whole is responsible for improving literacy, but most importantly the healthcare, public health professionals. Health professionals must know their audience in order to serve their patient. The language used by these professionals should be plain language, plain language is a strategy for making written and oral information easier to understand, it is communication that users can understand the first time they read or hear it. Physicians are a source of groundbreaking patient comprehension and compliance studies, a range of approaches to adult education brings health literacy skills to people in traditional classroom settings, as well as where they work and live. This approach is found lacking when placed in the context of ecological, critical. This approach has produced, and continues to reproduce, numerous correlational studies, being aware of information relevant to improving their health, or how to access health resources creates higher levels of disadvantage. For some people, a lack of education and health literacy that would flow from education prevents them from becoming empowered at any time in their lives and this view sees health literacy as a social determinant of health that offers a powerful opportunity to reduce inequities in health. While definitions vary in wording, they all fall within the conceptual framework offered in this definition, there are several tests, which have verified reliability in the academic literature that can be administered in order to test ones health literacy. Some of these include the Medical Term Recognition Test, which was developed in the United States for the clinical setting. The METER includes many words from the Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine test, the Short Assessment of Health Literacy in Spanish and English populations uses word recognition and multiple choice questions to test a persons comprehension. According to an Institute of Medicine report, low health literacy negatively affects the treatment outcome, the lack of health literacy affects all segments of the population. Anyone can face health literacy challenges including people with strong literacy skills, the mismatch between a clinicians level of communication and a patients ability to understand can lead to medication errors and adverse medical outcomes
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Health policy
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Health policy can be defined as the decisions, plans, and actions that are undertaken to achieve specific healthcare goals within a society. They may cover topics of financing and delivery of healthcare, access to care, quality of care, health-related policy and its implementation is complex. Conceptual models can help show the flow from health-related policy development to health-related policy and program implementation and to health systems, policy should be understood as more than a national law or health policy that supports a program or intervention. Operational policies are the rules, regulations, guidelines, and administrative norms that governments use to translate national laws and policies into programs, the policy process encompasses decisions made at a national or decentralized level that affect whether and how services are delivered. Thus, attention must be paid to policies at multiple levels of the health system, a supportive policy environment will facilitate the scale-up of health interventions. There are many topics in the politics and evidence that can influence the decision of a government, evidence-based policy relies on the use of science and rigorous studies such as randomized controlled trials to identify programs and practices capable of improving policy relevant outcomes. Most political debates surround personal health care policies, especially those that seek to reform healthcare delivery, the modern concept of healthcare involves access to medical professionals from various fields as well as medical technology, such as medications and surgical equipment. It also involves access to the latest information and evidence from research, including medical research, planning and production of health human resources is distributed among labour market participants. Many governments around the world have established universal health care, which takes the burden of healthcare expenses off of private businesses or individuals through pooling of financial risk, there are a variety of arguments for and against universal healthcare and related health policies. Healthcare is an important part of systems and therefore it often accounts for one of the largest areas of spending for both governments and individuals all over the world. Many countries and jurisdictions integrate a human rights philosophy in directing their healthcare policies, other jurisdictions and non-governmental organizations draw on the principles of humanism in defining their health policies, asserting the same perceived obligation and enshrined right to health. Such increasing attention to health as a human right has been welcomed by the leading medical journal The Lancet. There remains considerable controversy regarding policies on who would be paying the costs of care for all people. For example, government spending on healthcare is used as a global indicator of a governments commitment to the health of its people. The argument furthers that universal health insurance denies the right of patients to dispose of their own income as per their own will. Many types of health policies exist focusing on the financing of services to spread the economic risks of ill health. These include publicly funded care, mandatory or voluntary private health insurance. For those people who would go without care due to lack of financial means
27.
Health system
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There is a wide variety of health systems around the world, with as many histories and organizational structures as there are nations. In some countries, health system planning is distributed among market participants, however, health care planning has been described as often evolutionary rather than revolutionary. According to WHO, healthcare systems goals are good health for the citizens, responsiveness to the expectations of the population, progress towards them depends on how systems carry out four vital functions, provision of health care services, resource generation, financing, and stewardship. Other dimensions for the evaluation of systems include quality, efficiency, acceptability. They have also described in the United States as the five Cs, Cost, Coverage, Consistency, Complexity. Also, continuity of care is a major goal. Often health system has been defined with a reductionist perspective, for reducing it to healthcare system. In many publications, for example, both expressions are used interchangeably, the World Health Organization defines health systems as follows, A health system consists of all organizations, people and actions whose primary intent is to promote, restore or maintain health. This includes efforts to influence determinants of health as well as more direct health-improving activities, a health system is therefore more than the pyramid of publicly owned facilities that deliver personal health services. It includes inter-sectoral action by staff, for example, encouraging the ministry of education to promote female education. Healthcare providers are institutions or individuals providing healthcare services and they may also work outside of direct patient care such as in a government health department or other agency, medical laboratory, or health training institution. One study based on data from the OECD concluded that all types of health care finance are compatible with an efficient health system, the study also found no relationship between financing and cost control. The term health insurance is used to describe a form of insurance that pays for medical expenses. It is sometimes used broadly to include insurance covering disability or long-term nursing or custodial care needs. It may be provided through an insurance program, or from private insurance companies. It may be obtained on a basis or purchased by individual consumers. In each case premiums or taxes protect the insured from high or unexpected health care expenses, the benefit is typically administered by a government agency, a non-profit health fund or a corporation operating seeking to make a profit. Many government schemes also have co-payment schemes but exclusions are rare because of political pressure, the larger insurance schemes may also negotiate fees with providers
28.
Health care reform
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Health care reform is a general rubric used for discussing major health policy creation or changes—for the most part, governmental policy that affects health care delivery in a given place. The authors of the concluded that the prices paid for health care services are much higher in the U. S. In spite of the amount spent on care in the U. S. according to a 2008 Commonwealth Fund report. The World Health Organization, in 2000, ranked the US health care system 37th in overall performance, international comparisons that could lead to conclusions about the quality of the health care received by Americans are subject to debate. Many people are underinsured, for example, in Colorado of those with insurance for a year,36. 3% were underinsured. About 10.7 million insured Americans spend more than a quarter of their annual paychecks on health care because of the high deductible polices, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23,2010. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the net effect of both laws will be a reduction in the deficit by $143 billion over the first decade. The universal health care proposal pending in the U. S, Health care providers receive payment more frequently as the number of insured people increases and the number of uninsured patients unable to pay out of pocket declines. Many healthcare facilities are struggling to break even since the cost of providing health services has increased, due to wages, technology, and resources. The changes in regulations regarding risk pool assessment and the inclusion of 10 essential health benefits to every insurance plan have also contributed to the rise in cost of insurance premiums. Both Hawaii and Massachusetts have implemented some reforms in health care. For example, data from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that 5% of Massachusetts, the United States spends more on health care than any other country in the world, and, yet, has poorer health status by many measures. In 2007, the United States spent $7,290 per capita on health care, the average among peer nations in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development is $3075, just 42 percent of U. S. spending. Health spending is concentrated on a few consumers, in 2006, almost half of all health care spending was used to treat just 5 percent of the population, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. More than half of bankruptcy filings are related to health care expenses, and sixty-eight percent of these cases are filed by people who have health insurance. According to the White House Council of Economic Advisors, the family income will be $2,600 lower by 2020. The cost of insurance premiums more than doubled between 1999 and 2008 while workers earnings stagnated. In 2008, the annual cost for family insurance coverage was $12,700
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Maternal health
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Maternal health is the health of women during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period. The United Nations Population Fund estimated that 289,000 women died of pregnancy or childbirth related causes in 2013 and these causes range from severe bleeding to obstructed labour, all of which have highly effective interventions. This has resulted in many countries halving their maternal death rates, while there has been a decline in worldwide mortality rates much more has to be done. High rates still exist particularly in impoverished communities with over 85% living in Africa, the effect of a mothers death results in vulnerable families, and their infants, if they survive childbirth, are more likely to die before reaching their second birthday. Four elements are essential to maternal death prevention and it is recommended that expectant mothers receive at least four antenatal visits to check and monitor the health of mother and foetus. Second, skilled birth attendance with emergency backup such as doctors, nurses and midwives who have the skills to manage normal deliveries, third, emergency obstetric care to address the major causes of maternal death which are haemorrhage, sepsis, unsafe abortion, hypertensive disorders and obstructed labour. Lastly, postnatal care which is the six weeks following delivery, during this time bleeding, sepsis and hypertensive disorders can occur and newborns are extremely vulnerable in the immediate aftermath of birth. Therefore, follow-up visits by a worker is assess the health of both mother and child in the postnatal period is strongly recommended. Generally speaking, the poorer and more marginalized a woman is, in fact, maternal mortality rates reflect disparities between wealthy and poor countries more than any other measure of health. A womans lifetime risk of dying as a result of pregnancy or childbirth is 1 in 39 in Sub-Saharan Africa, the risk for maternal death in sub-Saharan Africa is 175 times higher than in developed countries, and risk for pregnancy-related illnesses and negative consequences after birth is even higher. Poverty, maternal health, and outcomes for the child are all interconnected, neonatal deaths in developing countries account for 98% of worldwide yearly neonatal deaths. That being said, poverty is detrimental to the health of mother and child. Generally, adequate prenatal care encompasses medical care and educational, social, additionally, immigrants and Hispanic women are at higher risk than white or black women for receiving little to no prenatal care, where level of education is also an indicator. Adolescents are least likely to receive any prenatal care at all, throughout several studies, women and adolescents ranked inadequate finances and lack of transportation as the most common barriers to receiving proper prenatal care. Income is strongly correlated with quality of prenatal care, sometimes, proximity to healthcare facilities and access to transportation have significant effects on whether or not women have access to prenatal care. Furthermore, researchers found a stronger relationship between lack of transportation and prenatal and delivery care. In addition to proximity being a predictor of prenatal care access, Materia and colleagues found similar results for proximity, Maternal HIV rates vary around the world, ranging from 1% to 40%, with African and Asian countries having the highest rates. HIV/AIDS can be transmitted to the offspring during the period, childbirth
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Mental health
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Mental health is a level of psychological well-being, or an absence of mental illness. It is the state of someone who is functioning at a satisfactory level of emotional and behavioral adjustment. Cultural differences, subjective assessments, and competing professional theories all affect how mental health is defined, a widely accepted definition of health by mental health specialists is psychoanalyst Sigmund Freuds definition, the capacity to work and to love. In the mid-19th century, William Sweetser was the first to coin the term mental hygiene, dorothea Dix was an important figure in the development of mental hygiene movement. Dix was a teacher who endeavored throughout her life to help people with mental disorders. This was known as the mental hygiene movement, emil Kraepelin in 1896 developed the taxonomy mental disorders which has dominated the field for nearly 80 years. Later the proposed model of abnormality was subjected to analysis. Mental illnesses are more common than cancer, diabetes, or heart disease, over 26 percent of all Americans over the age of 18 meet the criteria for having a mental illness. Serious mental disorders affect an estimated 6 percent of the adult population, a little more than half receive treatment. A WHO report estimates the global cost of illness at nearly $2.5 trillion in 2010. An individuals emotional health can also impact physical health and poor mental health can lead to such as substance abuse. Maintaining good mental health is crucial to living a long and healthy life, good mental health can enhance ones life, while poor mental health can prevent someone from living an enriching life. According to Richards, Campania, & Muse-Burke, There is growing evidence that is showing emotional abilities are associated with prosocial behaviors such as stress management and physical health. Their research also concluded that people who lack emotional expression are inclined to anti-social behaviors, Mental health can be seen as an unstable continuum, where an individuals mental health may have many different possible values. Mental wellness is generally viewed as an attribute, even if the person does not have any diagnosed mental health condition. This definition of mental health highlights emotional well-being, the capacity to live a full and creative life, some discussions are formulated in terms of contentment or happiness. Many therapeutic systems and self-help books offer methods and philosophies espousing strategies and techniques vaunted as effective for improving the mental wellness. Positive psychology is increasingly prominent in mental health, an example of a wellness model includes one developed by Myers, Sweeney and Witmer
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Pharmaceutical policy
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Pharmaceutical policy is a branch of health policy that deals with the development, provision and use of medications within a health care system. It embraces drugs, biologics, vaccines and natural health products, for example, a major investment by the NIH into research on HIV in the 1980s certainly could be viewed as an important foundation for the many antiviral drugs that have subsequently been developed. If that decision is not overturned by the United States Supreme Court, generic versions of the drug in controversy and this involves the approval of a product for sale in a jurisdiction. The regulatory process typically focuses on quality, safety and efficacy, to be approved for sale a product must demonstrate that it is generally safe, that it does what the manufacturer claims and that it is produced to high standards. Internal staff and expert advisory committees review products, once approved, a product is given an approval letter or issued with a notice of compliance, indicating that it may now be sold in the jurisdiction. In some cases, such approvals may have attached, requiring. In many jurisdictions drug prices are regulated. For example, in the UK the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme is intended to ensure that the National Health Service is able to purchase drugs at “reasonable prices. ”In Canada, in these circumstances, drug manufacturers must submit a proposed price to the appropriate regulatory agency. Payers may be private insurance plans, governments or health care such as hospitals. At this point the critical issue is cost-effectiveness and this is where the discipline of pharmaco-economics is often applied. Structures like the UK’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, some jurisdictions do not, however, evaluate products for cost-effectiveness. In some instances, individual drug benefit plans may also evaluate products, additionally, hospitals may have their own review committees to make decisions about which drugs to fund from the hospital budget. Drug plan administrators may also apply their own pricing rules outside of that set by national pricing agencies, for example, British Columbia uses a pricing model called reference-based pricing to set the price of drugs in certain classes. Many US pharmacy benefit managers use strategies like tiered formularies and preferred listings to encourage competition and downward pricing pressure, competitive procurement of this sort is common among large purchasers such as the US Veteran’s Health Administration. Typically, a manufacturer will provide an estimate of the use of a drug as well as the expected fiscal impact on a drug plan’s budget. Once a product is deemed cost-effective, a negotiated and any risk-sharing agreement negotiated. Prescribers may choose drugs on the list for their patients, subject to any conditions or patient criteria, at the core of most reimbursement regimes is the drug list, or formulary. Managing this list can involve many different approaches, negative lists – products that are not reimbursed under any circumstances are used in some jurisdictions
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Public health laboratory
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Public health laboratories are governmental reference laboratories that protect the public against diseases and other health hazards. In 2007, Haim Hacham et al. published a paper addressing the need for and their practice is an invaluable experience for all in the sector. The Public Health Laboratory Service was established as part of the National Health Service in 1946, an Emergency Public Health Laboratory Service was established in 1940 as a response to the threat of bacteriological warfare. There was originally a laboratory at Colindale and a network of regional and local laboratories. By 1955 there were about 1000 staff and these laboratories were primarily preventative with an epidemiological focus. They were, however, in some places located with hospital laboratories which had a diagnostic focus and it was replaced by the Health Protection Agency in 2003
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Reproductive health
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Individuals do face inequalities in reproductive health services. Inequalities vary based on status, education level, age, ethnicity, religion. It is possible for example, that low income individuals lack the resources for health services. The WHO assessed in 2008 that Reproductive and sexual ill-health accounts for 20% of the burden of ill-health for women. Reproductive health is a part of sexual and reproductive health and rights, Women bear and usually nurture children, so their reproductive health is inseparable from gender equality. Denial of such rights also worsens poverty, Reproductive health should be looked at through a lifecycle approach as it affects both men and women from infancy to old age. According to UNFPA, reproductive health at any age profoundly affects health later in life, as such, services such as health and education systems need to be strengthened and availability of essential health supplies such as contraceptives and medicines must be supported. For sexual health to be attained and maintained, the rights of all persons must be respected, protected and fulfilled. However, while used by WHO as well as organizations, this is not an official WHO position. Emerging research in the field of sexual and reproductive health identifies a series of factors that enhance the translation of research into policy and these include discursive changes, content changes, procedural changes and behavioural changes. Early childbearing and other behaviours can have health risks for women, waiting until a woman is at least 18 years old before trying to have children improves maternal and child health. After a fetal fatality, it is healthier to wait at least 6 months, most of these deaths can be avoided with improving womens access to quality care from a skilled birth attendant before, during and after pregnancy and childbirth. Modern contraception is often unavailable in parts of the world. In developing parts of the world, the lack of access to contraception is a cause of unintended pregnancy. According to UNFPA, access to services for all women could prevent about one in three deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth. The practice is concentrated in 29 countries in Africa and the Middle East, FGM also takes place in immigrant communities in Western countries, such as the UK. FGM procedures that seal or narrow a vaginal opening lead to a need for future surgeries of cutting open in order to allow for sexual intercourse, common STIs include chlamydia, gonorrhea, herpes, HIV, hepatitis B, human papillomavirus, syphilis, and trichomoniasis. Sexually transmitted infections affect reproductive and sexual health, having a negative impact worldwide
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Sociology of health and illness
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The sociology of health and illness, alternatively the sociology of health and wellness, examines the interaction between society and health. The objective of this topic is to see how social life affects morbidity and mortality rate and this aspect of sociology differs from medical sociology in that this branch of sociology discusses health and illness in relation to social institutions such as family, employment, and school. The sociology of medicine limits its concern to the patient-practitioner relationship, the sociology of health and illness covers sociological pathology, reasons for seeking particular types of medical aid, and patient compliance or noncompliance with medical regimes. Health, or lack of health, was once attributed to biological or natural conditions. Sociologists have demonstrated that the spread of diseases is influenced by the socioeconomic status of individuals, ethnic traditions or beliefs. This topic requires an approach of analysis because the influence of societal factors varies throughout the world. This will be demonstrated through discussion of the diseases of each continent. These diseases are sociologically examined and compared based on the medicine, economics, religion. HIV/AIDS serves as a basis of comparison among regions. While it is problematic in certain areas, in others it has affected a relatively small percentage of the population. Sociological factors can help to explain why these discrepancies exist, there are obvious differences in patterns of health and illness across societies, over time, and within particular society types. Patterns of global change in health care systems make it more imperative than ever to research and comprehend the sociology of health, continuous changes in economy, therapy, technology and insurance can affect the way individual communities view and respond to the medical care available. These rapid fluctuations cause the issue of health and illness within social life to be dynamic in definition. Advancing information is vital because as patterns evolve, the study of the sociology of health, humans have long sought advice from those with knowledge or skill in healing. Paleopathology and other records, allow an examination of how ancient societies dealt with illness. Rulers in Ancient Egypt sponsored physicians that were specialists in specific diseases, imhotep was the first medical doctor known by name. An Egyptian who lived around 2650 B. C. he was an adviser to King Zoser at a time when Egyptians were making progress in medicine, among his contributions to medicine was a textbook on the treatment of wounds, broken bones, and even tumors. Stopping the spread of disease was of utmost importance for maintaining a healthy society
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Preventive healthcare
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Preventive healthcare consists of measures taken for disease prevention, as opposed to disease treatment. Health, disease, and disability are dynamic processes which begin before individuals realize they are affected, Disease prevention relies on anticipatory actions that can be categorized as primal, primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention. Each year, millions of people die of preventable deaths, a 2004 study showed that about half of all deaths in the United States in 2000 were due to preventable behaviors and exposures. Leading causes included cardiovascular disease, chronic disease, unintentional injuries, diabetes. This same study estimates that 400,000 people die each year in the United States due to poor diet and this is an increase from the year 2000, during which 60% of deaths were attributed to these diseases. Preventive healthcare is especially important given the rise in prevalence of chronic diseases. There are many methods for prevention of disease, genetic testing can also be performed to screen for mutations that cause genetic disorders or predisposition to certain diseases such as breast or ovarian cancer. However, these measures are not affordable for every individual and the cost effectiveness of healthcare is still a topic of debate. Preventive healthcare strategies are described as taking place at the primal, primary, secondary, in the 1940s, Hugh R. Leavell and E. Gurney Clark coined the term primary prevention. They worked at the Harvard and Columbia University Schools of Public Health, respectively, goldston notes that these levels might be better described as prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation, though the terms primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention are still in use today. A separate category of health promotion has recently been propounded and this new way of promoting health is now commonly called primal prevention. It consists mainly in providing future parents with pertinent, unbiased information on primal health and this includes adequate parental leave - ideally for both parents - with kin caregiving and financial help where needed. Another related concept is primordial prevention which to refers to all measures designed to prevent the development of risk factors in the first place, primary prevention consists of traditional health promotion and specific protection. Health promotion activities are current, non-clinical life choices, for example, eating nutritious meals and exercising daily, that both prevent disease and create a sense of overall well-being. Preventing disease and creating overall well-being, prolongs our life expectancy, health-promotional activities do not target a specific disease or condition but rather promote health and well-being on a very general level. On the other hand, specific protection targets a type or group of diseases, whereas specific protective measures would be using prophylactics during sex and avoiding sexual promiscuity. Food is very much the most basic tool in preventive health care, the 2011 National Health Interview Survey performed by the Centers for Disease Control was the first national survey to include questions about ability to pay for food. Difficulty with paying for food, medicine, or both is a problem facing 1 out of 3 Americans and these are often low-income neighborhoods with the majority of residents lacking transportation
. PMID 17076568.
