Glossary: Key Terms by Chapter

Public health nursing:

the practice of promoting and protecting the health of populations using knowledge from nursing, social, and public health sciences

Community health nursing:

a subset of public health nursing that is further focused on specific communities, usually defined in geographic terms

Vulnerable populations:

groups of people and communities at a higher risk for poor health as a result of the barriers they experience to social, economic, political, and environmental resources, as well as limitations caused by illness or disability

Primordial disease prevention:

identifying social and environmental variables that can influence the health of entire populations and implementing targeted risk reduction strategies

Primary disease prevention:

aims to prevent disease or injury before it occurs

Secondary disease prevention:

focuses on detecting disease early and reducing the impact of disease before it progresses further

Tertiary disease prevention:

aims to reduce the severity of disease in symptomatic patients and make it easier to live with long-term health problems and injuries

Quaternary disease prevention:

preventing medical interventions likely to cause more harm than good

Chapter One: Community and Public Health Policy

Policy:

a course or principle of action adopted or proposed by a government, party, business, or individual

Legal:

based on or concerned with the law

Regulatory:

relating to the control or direction of an activity by a set of rules, laws, etc.

Advocacy:

the act or process of pleading for, supporting, or recommending a cause or course of action

Vulnerable populations:

groups of people and communities at a higher risk for poor health as a result of the barriers they experience to social, economic, political, and environmental resources, as well as limitations caused by illness or disability

Stakeholders:

persons with an interest or concern in something

Chapter Two: Health Disparities and Health Equity

Health equity:

a fair and just treatment that promotes the prevention or correction of health disparities

Health disparity:

the differences that exist among specific population groups in the attainment of good health

Immigrant:

a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country

Asylum seeker:

an immigrant who has been forcibly displaced and might have fled their home country because of war or other factors harming them or their family (seeking asylum or sanctuary is a legal process)

Refugee:

once an asylum seeker has gone through the legal process and the government has accepted them, their status becomes that of a refugee

Ableism:

the discrimination of and social prejudice against people with disabilities based on the belief that typical abilities are superior

LGBTQIA+:

an inclusive acronym used to include people of all genders and sexualities that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning/queer, intersex, asexual plus others such as pansexual

Chapter Three: Social Determinants of Health and Vulnerable Populations

Social determinants of health:

the conditions where people are born, work, live, worship, play, and age, that affect an individual’s health, functioning, quality of life outcomes, and risks

Geospatial determinants of health:

the places life is lived—from home to workplace, schools to parks, and town centers to places of worship—all affect individuals and a community’s health, thereby directly influencing how people experience both disease and well-being

Health behaviors:

actions individuals take that affect their health

Vulnerable populations:

groups of people and communities at a higher risk for poor health as a result of the barriers they experience to social, economic, political, and environmental resources, as well as limitations caused by illness or disability

Chapter Four: Epidemiology

Epidemiology:

the study of the distribution and determinants of health and disease in human populations

Rate:

a measure of the frequency with which an event occurs in a defined population over a specified time

Prevalence:

the number of cases in the population at a given time

Incidence:

the rate of occurrences of new cases in a certain period

Mortality:

the rates of death in a specific community or subset of the population

Morbidity:

the rate of illness in a community or specific subset of the population

Epidemic:

when there are more cases of a particular disease than expected in a given area, or among a specific group of people, over a particular period

Endemic:

when a population has a high level of the disease all the time (e.g., malaria is endemic in parts of Africa)

Pandemic:

a disease or condition that spreads globally, such as COVID-19

Cluster:

a group of cases in a specific time and place that exceeds what is expected

Notifiable conditions:

a list of conditions that must be reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) whenever they are encountered by clinicians or health department officials

Chapter Five: Population Health

Population health:

an interdisciplinary, customizable approach that allows health departments to connect practice to policy for change to happen locally

Public health:

what society collectively does to assure the conditions in which people can be healthy

Health department:

a division of a local or larger government responsible for the oversight and care of matters relating to public health

Health policy:

a course or principle of action adopted or proposed by a government, party, business, or individual to promote wellness

Health outcomes:

measure a change in the health status of an individual or a group that can be attributed to the intervention

Chapter Six: Community Assessment and Evaluation

Community health assessment:

a state, tribal, local, or territorial health assessment that identifies key health needs and issues through systematic, comprehensive data collection and analysis

Windshield survey:

systematic observations made from a moving vehicle

Walking survey:

systematic observations made on foot

Quantitative data:

information that can be expressed in terms of numbers

Qualitative data:

information that cannot be measured or expressed in terms of numbers but instead is descriptive and gives a feel of the community

Chapter Seven: Community Violence and Violence Prevention

Gender-based violence:

violence directed against a person because of their gender

Domestic violence:

willful intimidation, physical assault, battery, sexual assault, and/or other abusive behavior as part of a systematic pattern of power and control perpetrated by one intimate partner against another

Intimate partner violence:

behavior within an intimate relationship that causes physical, sexual, or psychological harm, including acts of physical aggression, sexual coercion, psychological abuse, and controlling behaviors

Perpetrate:

carry out or commit

Violence:

behavior with the intention to harm someone

Chapter Eight: Emergency Preparedness

Syndromic surveillance:

provides public health officials with a timely system for detecting, understanding, and monitoring health events by tracking symptoms of patients before a diagnosis is confirmed (public health can detect unusual levels of illness to determine whether a response is warranted)

Bioterrorism:

terrorism involving the release of toxic biological agents

Chapter Nine: Trauma-Informed Care

Trauma:

a deeply distressing or disturbing experience

Retraumatization:

reliving the event that caused the trauma

Chapter Ten: Mental Health

Anxiety:

a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome

Depression:

a common mood disorder causing severe symptoms that affect how a person feels, thinks, and handles daily activities, such as sleeping, eating, or working

Bipolar:

a mental illness that causes unusual shifts in mood, ranging from extreme highs (mania or “manic” episodes) to lows (depression or “depressive” episode)

Schizophrenia:

a serious mental disorder characterized by disruptions in thought processes, perceptions, emotional responsiveness, and social interactions

Suicide:

death caused by injuring oneself with the intent to die

Chapter Eleven: Current Issues

Opioids:

a class of drugs that include synthetic opioids such as fentanyl; pain relievers available legally by prescription, such as oxycodone (OxyContin®), hydrocodone (Vicodin®), codeine, morphine; the illegal drug heroin; and many others

Prescription drug monitoring programs:

an electronic database that tracks controlled substance prescriptions in a state

Medication-assisted treatment:

the use of medications in combination with counseling and behavioral therapies, which is effective in the treatment of opioid use disorders and can help some people to sustain recovery

Harm reduction:

a public health approach that focuses on mitigating the harmful consequences of drug use, including transmission of infectious disease and prevention of overdose, through provision of care that is intended to be free of stigma and centered on the needs of people who use drugs

Reproductive justice:

the human right to control our sexuality, our gender, our work, and our reproduction

Transgender:

denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their birth sex

Gender-affirming:

treating individuals holistically and affirming a person’s gender with the name, pronouns, and expressions they use

Stigma:

a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person

Discrimination:

the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex

Climate justice:

a movement acknowledging that climate change can have differing social, economic, public health, and other adverse impacts on underprivileged populations