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Agent
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An organism or substance that causes disease.
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Biomedical Perspective
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Medical practice that focuses on empirical testing as a way to seek connections between particular causative agents and symptoms.
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Case Fatality Rate
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The proportion of people with a particular disease who subsequently die from it.
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Chornic
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Persisting or recurring over a long period of time.
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Correlation
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An association between two variables.
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Deaths of Despair
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Deaths associated with drug abuse, suicide, and alcoholism (often interpreted as reflecting wider societal problems).
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Disease Ecology
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An approach to disease that considers humans as one part of an inter-related ecological community (necessitating the study of pathogens, vectors, hosts, and the environments that support them).
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Diseases of Affluence
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Non-communicable diseases associated with poor diet and sedentary lifestyle, including obesity, heart disease, and cancer.
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Double Burden of Disease
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Communities suffering significantly from both infectious diseases and diseases associated with increasing affluence.
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Environmental Determinism
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A philosophical approach that suggests that humans are overwhelmingly influence by their environment, particularly climate, with respect to characteristics such as behaviour, physiology, and personality.
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Epidemic
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A sudden, large outbreak of a disease with far more cases than expected for a time and place.
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Fertility Rate
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Average number of children born per woman over her lifetime.
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Germ Theory
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The idea that microbes invade human bodies and cause alterations that result in disease.
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Globalization
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The economic integration of the world, facilitated by advances in logistics and communication.
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Host
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The human or animal in which a pathogen resides (primary or intermediate).
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Incidence Rate
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The number of new cases of a disease in a particular population over a specified time period per unit of that population.
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Infant Mortality Rate
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The number of infants who die between birth and the age of one in a given year, usually reported per 1000 live births.
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Life Expectancy
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The average years an infant born in a particular year is expected to live, assuming that current mortality rates continue to apply.
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Pandemic
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A widespread epidemic, usually continent-wide or global in reach.
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Patriarchy
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The structuring of society around men as the dominant figure.
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Place
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Specific geographic settings (spaces with meaning attached to them).
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Postmodernism
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A philosophical approach that rejects the apparent rationality of the modern era, urging us to be aware of an question the assumptions that we make, often unconsciously, from the dominant discourse of modernism.
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Prevalence
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The number of existing cases of a disease in a particular population per unit of that population.
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Preventative Health
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Efforts to promote health and well-being by encouraging healthy behaviours before the onset of disease, as well as early detection of disease via screening programs.
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Proximate Causes of Ill Helath
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The immediate concerns that lead directly to illness, such as lack of food or exposure to an infectious agent.
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Public Health
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The study of health topics at the population scale, emphasizing health-promoting behaviours that will generate benefit for the broader population.
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Qualitative Approaches
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Techniques such as interviewing, focus groups, and participant observation that deepen our understanding of individual behaviour, asking how and why people make the decisions they do.
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Quantitative Approaches
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Methods of inquiry based on counting, measuring, and other numerical techniques.
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Reductionism
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A philosophical approach that attempts to reduce complex systems to their parts, which can then be studied independently (critics argue that this can lead to oversimplification).
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Geography Scale
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The area encompassed by a topic or study.
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Sense of Place
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The unique feeling or spirit of a place, associated with its social significance.
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Social Capital
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Social connections and networks that can serve to benefit both individuals and societies.
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Space
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Concerned with defining where things are (notions of location, distance, and area).
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Spillover Event
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The spread of a pathogen from its natural host species, causing disease in another species.
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Structural Factors
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Cultural, economic, and political structures of society, such as government legislation, social hierarchies, and poverty.
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Vector
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An organism that transmits a pathogen between hosts, such as a mosquito or fly.