2.4.1

Health Issues

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Health Issues

Health refers to someone's physical and mental well-being. Disease is a major contributor to ill health. Other factors include diet, stress and life situations.

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Types of disease

  • Disease can be subdivided into two categories:
    • Communicable diseases, which can be spread between organisms.
    • Non-communicable diseases, which cannot be spread between organisms.

Disease Interaction

Different diseases can interact with one another (act together), leading to a spiral of declining health. For example:

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Immune system

  • A disease that suppresses the immune system (e.g. HIV) makes individuals more susceptible (likely) to catching other infectious diseases.
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Cancer

  • Viruses occupying cells can stimulate (bring about) cancers.
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Mental health

  • Physical problems can negatively impact upon an individual’s mental health.
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Allergies

  • Allergies (e.g. asthma and skin rashes) can be triggered by an immune reaction to a pathogen (microorganism that can cause disease).

Sampling

Governments and health organisations track cases of diseases to inform their policy decisions. These can be global cases, or cases in a target group (called the target population). For example, the number of incidences of a particular disease in Scotland, or in 60-79 year olds in Manchester.

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Big populations and sampling

  • As a country's population is so large, not everybody can be tested.
  • Instead, we take a sample and assume that the pattern is true for the whole population.
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Sampling example

  • If 10 people in a sample of 100 people have a particular disease, 10% of the sample has the disease.
    • We assume that 10% of the population will also have the disease.
  • If the population has 2000 people, then we predict 200 people in the population have the disease.

Jump to other topics

1Cell Biology

2Organisation

2.1Principles of Organisation

2.2Enzymes

2.3Circulatory System

2.4Non-Communicable Diseases

2.5Plant Tissues, Organs & Systems

3Infection & Response

4Bioenergetics

5Homeostasis & Response

6Inheritance, Variation & Evolution

7Ecology

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