Practice Questions for Test 3

1. Know the various terms of women's health conditions listed in Table 9-2 (p. 149). For each term, explain contributing factors that are biomedical (i.e. specific to the female body) versus factors that are political or cultural.

2. Explain why it is helpful to focus on women's health as a special category. Similarly, explain why it can be helpful to focus on child health, men's health, and geriatric health.

3. For each of the following conditions, discuss their relative importance for low-income countries versus high-income countries. Also explain how issues for high-income countries can become important for low-income countries.

Obstetric fistula
Family planning (access to contraception)
Maternal death (death during or shortly after giving birth)
Sexually transmitted infections
Alzheimer's disease
Depression
Pharmaceutical testing (small proportion of female subjects)
Product safety (automobile interiors; airline seat size) (Note: See Chapter 13)
Sexual response difficulties (female and male)

4. Discuss the various reasons women seek abortions. Include both self-determined reasons and pressured reasons. How do the reasons vary for early versus late-term abortions? For low-income versus high-income countries? For countries that place a premium on male infants, or that lack public economic support for the elderly? Under what conditions is safe, affordable abortion a healthy option for women; and under what conditions is it oppressive?

5. What is meant by the "environment," and by "environmental health"? Explain how the definition of environment differs for individual health versus public health.

6. Outline the major kinds of environmental concern for health: physical and chemical factors, microbiological, and psychological factors. Explain how the burden of environmental factors is intensified in low-income countries, and in low-income communities of high-income countries.

7. Explain the difference between a point-source epidemic and a host-to-host epidemic, describing an example of each. Can one pathogen generate both types of epidemic?

8. Explain the difference between local and global environmental issues. Discuss the advantages and limitations of local versus global approaches to environmental public health. Explain the saying, "Think globally, act locally."

9. What is the "One Health Initiative"? What is the historical background that made this initiative necessary?

10. Explain several different reasons that we need simultaneous study of disease in humans and animals. Explain how societal changes have increased the need.

11. Explain the role of clinical microbiology in identifying microbes, surveillance, and conducting controlled studies. Explain several different reasons that pathogen identification is important.

12. Explain three different strategies for identifying a pathogen from a human source. Explain the advantages and limitations of each method.

13. What problems arise in identifying viral pathogens? Explain two different ways that viral infection can be detected in a patient.

14. Explain the difference between an endemic disease, a point-source epidemic, and a propagated (host-to-host) epidemic. How do the profiles of incidence differ among these?

15. How does the practice of identification differ between the laboratories of high-income and low-income countries? Discuss specific examples.

16. Suppose a developing country has to choose between spending funds on antiviral therapies for HIV/AIDS in young adults, or on ORT and antibiotics for pertussis, diarrheal disease, and pneumonia in babies and children. How do you think the country will decide, and why?

17. How is community health regulated and organized in the United States? How and why do various communities differ in their health services?

18. Discuss the role of grant funding in community health services. Where do grants come from? How does grant dependence affect availability of services?

19. How is health insurance organized and regulated? How does health insurance fit into the spectrum of federal and state sources of health care funding?

20. What determines the level of coverage for individuals in a health plan? Why do health plans cost more for some groups than others, even if they cover the same categories of care?

21. Do you think the health premiums paid by young men should cover maternity care as part of their group? Should young people share the cost of all care of elderly, such as knee replacements for people aged ninety? Should non-smokers share the cost of treatment for chronic conditions suffered by smokers?