ABPM Public Health flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Incidence rate

Number of new cases of a disease occurring in a population during a specified period divided by the total person-time at risk during that period.

Point prevalence

Proportion of a population that has a disease or condition at a single specified point in time; numerator is existing cases at that moment.

Odds ratio

Ratio of the odds of exposure among cases to the odds of exposure among controls; calculated as ad/bc from a 2×2 table.

Attributable risk

The absolute difference in disease incidence between exposed and unexposed groups; represents excess risk associated with exposure.

Sensitivity

Proportion of truly diseased individuals who test positive; equals true positives divided by true positives plus false negatives.

Specificity

Proportion of truly disease-free individuals who test negative; equals true negatives divided by true negatives plus false positives.

Positive predictive value

Probability that a person with a positive test result actually has the disease; depends heavily on disease prevalence in the tested population.

Confounding

A third variable associated with both exposure and outcome that distorts the observed exposure-outcome relationship if not controlled.

Standard error of mean

The standard deviation of the sampling distribution of the mean; estimated as sample standard deviation divided by the square root of n.

Type I error

Rejecting a true null hypothesis; its probability is alpha, conventionally set at 0.05.

Statistical power

Probability of correctly rejecting a false null hypothesis; equals 1 minus beta, conventionally targeted at 0.80 or higher.

Chi-square test

Tests whether two categorical variables are independent by comparing observed cell frequencies to those expected under the null hypothesis.

Coefficient of determination

r-squared; the proportion of variance in the dependent variable explained by the independent variable in a regression model.

95% confidence interval

Range of values that would contain the true population parameter in 95% of repeated samples; approximately estimate plus or minus 1.96 standard errors.

ANOVA

Analysis of variance; compares means across three or more groups by partitioning total variance into between-group and within-group components.

Donabedian quality model

Framework evaluating health care quality through three dimensions: structure (resources), process (care delivery), and outcomes (results).

Triple Aim

Framework aiming to simultaneously improve population health, enhance patient experience of care, and reduce per-capita health care cost.

Medicare Part A

Federal insurance covering inpatient hospital stays, skilled nursing facility care, hospice, and some home health services for eligible beneficiaries.

Medicaid

Jointly funded federal-state program providing health coverage to low-income individuals, administered by states within federal guidelines.

HMO

Health maintenance organization; managed care plan with a defined provider network and often a gatekeeper requiring referrals for specialty care.

PDSA cycle

Plan-Do-Study-Act; iterative four-step method for testing and implementing changes in quality improvement work.

Cost-effectiveness ratio

Difference in cost between two interventions divided by the difference in health effect; expressed as cost per unit of health gain.

Exposure pathway

Sequence from a contaminant source through an environmental medium to a human exposure route and target organ.

LD50

Lethal dose for 50 percent of exposed test animals; a lower value indicates greater acute toxicity of a substance.

Reference dose

Estimate of a daily oral exposure likely to be without appreciable risk over a lifetime; derived by dividing a no-effect level by uncertainty factors.

Biomagnification

Progressive increase in concentration of persistent lipophilic substances in organisms at successively higher trophic levels of a food chain.

Radon

Naturally occurring radioactive gas from soil and rock that accumulates indoors and is a leading environmental cause of lung cancer.

Risk characterization

Final step of risk assessment integrating hazard identification, dose-response, and exposure assessment to estimate likelihood and severity of harm.

Social determinants of health

Conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age, including economic stability, education, and neighborhood environment.

Health belief model

Behavior-change framework holding that action depends on perceived susceptibility, severity, benefits, barriers, cues to action, and self-efficacy.

Transtheoretical model

Stages-of-change model describing behavior change across precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance stages.

Social cognitive theory

Theory emphasizing reciprocal determinism among personal factors, behavior, and environment, with self-efficacy as a central determinant of action.