A population health perspective Flashcards
What is epidemiology?
A study of occupancy and distribution of health related events, states or processes in specified populations
What is population health
Population health is the health outcomes of a group of individuals including the distribution of such outcomes within the group
About groups of people, important to recognise population could be geographical (new zealand) or regional (dunedin), a group of people who have something in common (students at otago)
Concerned with how health outcomes are distributed between different groups that make up the population
Does socioeconomic status explain differences between ethnicities life expectancy?
Differences between socioeconomic status explains some health differences between non-māori and Māori but does not explain all as Non-Māori with the same amount of income as Māori still tend to have a higher life expectancy
What is socioeconomic status?
Incorporates many measure of socioeconomic status including occupation, income, education etc. Important to think about what is being measured and any potential issues that could occur when assessing socioeconomic status e.g. net income, stable job, high qualification
What is NZDep?
NZ divided into small areas, each area has a deprivation score - creating a decile. A decile is an area with least deprived score, ten is an area with the most deprived score, one is an area with the least deprived score. Determined using questions with the census hence applies to everyone
Strengths and Weakness of NZdep
Strengths: Considers a range of aspects (income, health, occupation etc.), can be used for everyone (not just at individual level), can be determined from address (can determine score for smaller areas)
Weakness: not an individual measure, incorporates a range but not everything, quite complex to measure, not a label
What is absolute poverty?
Income level below which a minimum nutritionally adequate diet plus essential non-food requirements that is not affordable. Really extreme poverty, inability to access basic necessities of life
What is relative poverty?
The amount of income a person, family or group needs to purchase a relative amount of basic necessities for life which are identified relative to each society and economy
Social determinants of health
The social determinants of health are the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, and the wider set of forces and systems shaping the conditions of daily life. Low SES can impact health as typically if someone has low SES they may not be able to afford high quality housing (mouldy, cold, overcrowded house) hence more at risk for some health conditions (respiratory conditions, heart disease)
