Epidemiological Transition

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1) The epidemiological transition is the shift from infectious- to chronic-disease causes of mortality that, as Friedan (2015) points out, has occurred all over the world, but particularly in wealthier nations, due to advances in public health and medicine. While the demographic transition can complement the epidemiological transition, it is not the same because it shows an interplay of birth and death rates influencing population growth (Macinko, 2016). Furthermore, unlike the epidemiological transition, the demographic transition does not explicitly isolate disease causes of mortality (Colgrove, 2002).
2) Social stratification is the idea that people are arranged into groups of unequal power according to characteristics like age, sex, race/ethnicity, …show more content…

Although his methods were flawed, McKeown’s assertion helps ground (and sometimes re-ground) public health as a discipline of social justice, not a branch of medicine. Thanks in part to McKeown, major institutions like the CDC take seriously socioeconomic factors that impact population-level health outcomes (Friedan, 2015).
4) Link and Phelan (1995) define a “fundamental cause” as a social condition that determines disease risk or access to resources that mitigate risk. Fundamental causes are not linked to any specific medical condition; instead, they impact an individual’s ability to maintain health and avoid unhealthy behaviors. For example, education is a fundamental cause because it equips an individual with resources - knowledge, money, and empowerment - needed to live well and prevent disease.
5) Public health is a multifaceted discipline that works to promote and improve health and prevent disease through population-level interventions (American Public Health Association, …show more content…

(2010) describe the poverty line as one threshold by which health is often examined: people are either in poverty and unhealthy or not impoverished and healthy. The social gradient, by contrast, examines patterned health status across socioeconomic position, indicating that health deteriorates incrementally from the highest-status position to the lowest-status position. So a more appropriate comparison for the social gradient would be between the “haves,” “haves less,” “haves even less,” all the way to the “haves little to none.” An illustration of the social gradient in health across economic position according to the Federal Poverty Level is included in the appendix to this

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