Principles and theories
Emily Ying Yang Chan in Disaster Public Health and Older People, 2019
Epidemiology describes the time, place and person associated with the occurrence of the disease. In principle, diseases might be categorised into two main subgroups, namely, communicable and non-communicable diseases. Communicable diseases, also known as infectious diseases, have long been the major causes for morbidity and mortality in human history. Communicable disease refers to: “illness due to the transmission of specific infectious agent (or its toxic products) from an infected person, animal… to a susceptible host, either directly or indirectly” (Guest, Ricciardi, Kawachi, & Lang, 2013, p. 166). As the diseases might be transmitted in the environment among persons/animals, their occurrence may be affected by behavioural, social, environmental and biological determinants of a susceptible community. In the twenty-first century, suboptimal hygiene in environment and behavioural patterns in many developing contexts have made communicable diseases the largest public health threats for preventable child and adolescent mortality. Social and environmental changes that resulted from urbanised lifestyle, deforestation and increased living density may influence infectious diseases burden at the global level. Antibiotics misuse has created new emerging communicable diseases, such as multidrug-resistant TB and vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus that have affected developed and developing contexts alike. Increased international movements of people and expansion of international trade have also increased communicable disease risk in developed communities.
Health promotion, disease outbreaks and health emergencies
Glenn Laverack in Health Promotion in Disease Outbreaks and Health Emergencies, 2017
Communicable disease, also called infectious and transmissible disease, comprises clinically evident illnesses resulting from pathogenic agents in an individual or population group and can include viruses, bacteria, fungi and protozoa. A communicable disease is transmitted from a source, such as from one person to another or from a vector to a person. Identifying the means of transmission is important in helping people to understand how to prevent the disease outbreak and focuses on controlling or eliminating the cause of transmission, the vector or high-risk behaviours. Sometimes, this identification can be done using a physical method (e.g. a bed net to prevent being bitten by a mosquito) or a vaccine to reduce the effect of the disease (e.g. for cholera). Surveillance is particularly important because of the infectious nature and the rapid spread of communicable diseases. Information that is used for surveillance comes from various sources, including reported cases of communicable diseases, hospital admissions, laboratory reports, population surveys, reports of absence from school or work, and reported causes of death (Public Health Agency of Canada 2013).
Clinical features of malaria
David A Warrell, Herbert M Gilles in Essential Malariology, 2017
The classical periodicity of febrile paroxysms develops only if the patient is untreated until the infection becomes synchronized, so that sufficient numbers of erythrocytes containing mature schizonts rupture at the same time. The interval is determined by the length of the asexual erythrocytic cycle: 48 hours in P. falciparum, P. vivax and P. ovale, producing febrile paroxysms on alternate days (or days 1 and 3, hence tertian, according to the ancient Roman system of counting); 72 hours for P. malariae, causing febrile paroxysms on days 1 and 4 (hence quartan). However, intermittent fever is usually absent at the beginning of the disease, when headache, malaise, fatigue, nausea, muscular pains, diarrhoea and slight increase of body temperature are the predominant and vague symptoms, which are easily mistaken for influenza or a gastrointestinal infection. Tertian periodicity is rarely seen in falciparum malaria. A high, irregularly spiking, continuous or remittent fever or a daily (quotidian) febrile paroxysm is more usual.
The triple burden of disease, destitution, and debt: Small business-women’s voices about health challenges after becoming debt-ridden
Published in Health Care for Women International, 2023
Sara Rizvi Jafree, Mudasir Mustafa
Women from all MFP types reported at least seven or more types of health problems and thus differences in health challenges faced by women according to MFP type have not been reported separately. Health challenges have been reported using the theoretical framework of this study, which categorizes problems according to “environment” and “healthcare delivery system.” “Environmental” health challenges are further sub-divided under “social,” “physical and mental,” and “economic” challenges. For the “social” sub-category, we found that women faced the following health challenges: (i) unsupportive loan officers, (ii) communicable diseases, and (iii) lack of permission to seek healthcare. Under the “physical and mental” sub-category we found that women face health challenges related to: (i) stress and anxiety, (ii) injuries, and (iii) non-communicable diseases. Under the “economic” sub-category we found two health challenges: (i) poverty and (ii) small loans and high installments rates.
A systematic perspective on the applications of big data analytics in healthcare management
Published in International Journal of Healthcare Management, 2019
Sachin S. Kamble, Angappa Gunasekaran, Milind Goswami, Jaswant Manda
Transmission of diseases refers to the communicable diseases through the transfer of pathogens from a infected person or a group to other person irrespective of the other person was previosuly infected or not. Predection of disease transmission duirng epidemic is an significant aspect of BDA in healtcare management as it helps to prevent and control the transmission of the disease. The real-time climate data with help of sensors, computing technologies and artificial intelligence (referred to as ‘Ambient Intelligence’) was used to develop a big data-based surveillance system for continous monitoring and control of dengue [71]. The spatio-temporal big data collected by the volunteers of E-bola outbreak using their mobile devices was found to be very useful in evaluating the impact of network structure on disease dynamics [72]. Chen et al. [73] suggests use of structured and unstructured data from hospitals, along with the regional data for building strong prediction models for estimation of disease outbreaks.
Analysis of an environmental epidemic model based on voluntary vaccination policy
Published in Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering, 2023
Ke-Lu Li, Jun-Yuan Yang, Xue-Zhi Li
The final pathogen load plotted in the two-dimensional plane of vaccine effectiveness versus the relative cost of vaccination are shown in Figures 5d-*, 6d-*, and 7d-* for each of the three different strategy update rules. From these figures, we conclude that the direct transmission rate has a positive effect on the viral load in the environment. This anomaly deserves our next reflection. Viruses in the environment are obtained through the release of diseased individuals. In contrast, in the initial stages of an epidemic, infected individuals are produced through direct person-to-person transmission. Therefore, direct person-to-person transmission remains the main way of disease epidemics compared to human infection through exposure to viruses in the surrounding environment. However, we still cannot ignore the potential role of viral load in the environment on epidemic transmission.
Related Knowledge Centers
- Adaptive Immune System
- Inflammation
- Innate Immune System
- Tissue
- Toxin
- Virus
- Immune System
- Pathogen
- Host
- Pathogenic Bacteria