QCAA Health flashcards

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

WHO definition of health

The 1948 World Health Organization definition states that health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

Functional health literacy

Basic reading and writing skills that let a person understand health information such as appointment cards, medicine labels and simple instructions about treatment or prevention.

Interactive health literacy

More advanced cognitive and social skills that allow a person to extract information from different sources and apply it, often through interaction with health professionals or community groups.

Critical health literacy

The highest level, involving the ability to critically analyse health information and use it to take action, both to control personal health and to influence social and political conditions.

Social view of health

A perspective holding that health is shaped mainly by social, economic, cultural, political and environmental conditions, rather than only by individual choices or biological risk factors.

Biomedical model of health

An approach that explains health and illness in terms of biological and physiological processes, focusing on diagnosis, treatment and cure of disease in individuals rather than on prevention.

Ottawa Charter prerequisites

Nine prerequisites for health set out in the 1986 Ottawa Charter: peace, shelter, education, food, income, a stable ecosystem, sustainable resources, social justice and equity.

Health literacy (Nutbeam)

Nutbeam describes health literacy as the cognitive and social skills that determine people's motivation and ability to gain access to, understand and use information to promote and maintain good health.

Social determinants of health

The conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, including income, education, employment, housing and social support, which together produce most health inequities.

Health inequity

A difference in health status between groups that is avoidable, unjust and unfair, arising from unequal distribution of power, money and resources rather than from unavoidable biological variation.

Health inequality

Any measurable difference in health status or in the distribution of health resources between individuals or groups, whether or not that difference is judged to be unjust.

Equity versus equality

Equality means giving every group the same resources; equity means distributing resources according to need so that avoidable differences in health outcomes can be reduced or removed.

Dahlgren and Whitehead model

A rainbow-shaped model with layers of influence: age, sex and hereditary factors at the centre, then lifestyle, social networks, living and working conditions, and general socioeconomic conditions.

Social gradient in health

The pattern in which health outcomes improve step by step as socioeconomic position rises, meaning each level of the social hierarchy has worse health than the level above it.

Upstream determinants

Distal factors such as income inequality, education policy and housing supply that shape the conditions of daily life and therefore influence health indirectly, upstream of individual behaviour.

Intersectionality

The idea that a person's health is affected by the combined and interacting effects of multiple characteristics such as gender, income, ethnicity, disability and rural location.

Ottawa Charter action areas

The five 1986 Ottawa Charter strategies: build healthy public policy, create supportive environments, strengthen community action, develop personal skills, and reorient health services.

Health promotion (WHO)

The process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health; it moves beyond individual behaviour to address the social and environmental causes of health.

Primary prevention

Action taken before disease occurs, such as immunisation, fluoridated water, safe footpaths or taxation of tobacco, that reduces the incidence of a health problem in a population.

Secondary prevention

Early detection and prompt treatment of a disease already present but not yet symptomatic, for example screening programs such as mammography or cervical screening, to reduce severity and progression.

Tertiary prevention

Actions that reduce the impact of an established, long-term condition, such as rehabilitation, support groups and chronic disease management, aiming to restore function and prevent complications.

Settings-based approach

A health promotion strategy that acts within places where people live, work, learn and play, such as health-promoting schools, healthy workplaces and healthy cities, to reach populations systematically.

Harm minimisation

A policy and program approach that seeks to reduce the harms associated with risky behaviour, such as needle exchange programs, without requiring people to stop the behaviour first.

Jakarta Declaration

A 1997 statement that set priorities for health promotion in the twenty-first century, including investing in health development and expanding partnerships across sectors and settings.

Validity

The extent to which a study, test or measurement tool accurately measures what it claims to measure, so that conclusions drawn from the data are accurate.

Reliability

The consistency of a measurement or study: the extent to which repeated measurements, or different researchers using the same method, produce the same result.

Prevalence

The total number of existing cases of a health condition in a defined population at a given point in time, usually expressed as a proportion or per 1000 people.

Incidence

The number of new cases of a disease arising in a population at risk during a specified period, used to show how quickly a disease is developing.

Formative evaluation

Evaluation conducted before or during the development of a program to check that its design, messages and delivery are appropriate, allowing adjustments before full implementation.

Outcome evaluation

Evaluation that measures long-term changes in health status, behaviour or quality of life attributable to a program, answering whether the program achieved its ultimate goals.

Randomised controlled trial

An experimental design in which participants are randomly assigned to an intervention or control group, reducing selection bias and allowing stronger causal conclusions than observational designs.

Informed consent

An ethical requirement that participants be told the purpose, procedures, risks and benefits of research, and voluntarily agree to take part with capacity to withdraw at any time.