Session 2

  Chapter 3

Living with Nature

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Chapter Three Slides:

Key Concepts:

1. The human body provides a habitat for other, much smaller organisms, some of which make us sick.
2. The human body mounts a defense against pathogens.
3. The effort to manage infectious disease risk incorporates several different approaches.
4. When people are close to one another, pathogens can be transmitted from one person to another simply through proximity; this is transmission through closeness or contact.
5. Airborne transmission of pathogens is distinct from transmission via respiratory droplets in the air.
6. Fecal–oral pathways for the transmission of infectious disease are important in public health.
7. Foodborne illness emerges as a distinct phenomenon only where there is clean tap water.
8. The keys to food safety in the kitchen are (1) preventing contamination by pathogens as much as possible and (2) managing time and temperature to minimize the growth of populations of pathogens when prevention fails.
9. The term vectorborne disease refers specifically to diseases transmitted by a biological vector.
10. Infectious disease is an important cause of mortality and morbidity on a global scale.
11. In the United States, responsibilities related to infectious disease are divided between state governments and the federal government.
12. Certain plants, animals, and fungi produce poisons that are acutely toxic to humans. Most of these cause relatively isolated incidents of poisoning in individuals or local groups. In contrast, exposures to aflatoxin create a substantial public health burden.
13. Allergy and asthma, which are conditions of the immune system, have been linked to some environmental factors.
14. Mortality from natural disasters is highly variable over time, but certain types of disasters tend to cause very high mortality when they occur.
15. Some isotopes of certain chemical elements are radioactive: an unstable isotope ejects part of its nucleus, thus emitting radiation and “decaying” into a different element.
16. Radioactive decays occur in characteristic series; each isotope in the chain has a characteristic half-life, and each decay emits a characteristic type of radiation.
17. In public health, we make a key distinction between radiation that has enough energy to create charged ions in the body and radiation that does not have enough energy to do this.
18. From a public health standpoint, alpha, beta, and gamma radiation pose distinct hazards in terms of the intensity of their damage to tissue and in terms of the shielding required to protect against them. These two issues are related.
19. Ionizing radiation’s biological effects are relatively well established and depend on the level of exposure.
20. People are routinely exposed to naturally occurring radiation, both ionizing and nonionizing.
21. Naturally occurring radiation, both ionizing and nonionizing, has impacts on human health.

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Chapter 3: Living with Nature

 Learning Objectives:

Homework:Answer all of the following study questions and email the attached questions and answers in Word of pdf format to the instructor by Canvas email no later than 5 pm on Sunday the last day of Session 2. In the beginning of your emial message identify the class session for the homework being submitted.

Study Questions

1. Describe three distinct ways in which infectious disease is routinely transmitted via the hands, giving an example of a pathogen for each.

2. The persistence of a chemical in the soil is referred to with a specific term. Go to the web and research what this term might be, and explain it.

3. What is meant by "the environmental half-life of a chemical? (You will need to do web research to answer this).

4. What is the difference between bioaccumulation and biomagnification? (You will need to do web research to answer this).

5. What is the difference between bioaccumulation and bioconcentration? Can you research this and find any difference? (You will need to do web research to answer this).

6. Identify a factor you could change to reduce your risk, or your family’s risk, of infectious disease, explaining why this change would be effective.

7. Based on your reading of this chapter, design a poster that gives basic tips for food safety at home, written for members of the public who have a high school education.

8. In the event of a human influenza outbreak in a U.S. state, under what conditions do you think it would be appropriate for the state government to use quarantine and/or isolation to control the outbreak?

9. Describe the health connection between hepatitis B infection and exposure to aflatoxin, and explain the global pattern of disease that results.

10. Explain why radon stands out as an important source of exposure to naturally occurring ionizing radiation.