Glossary
Note: references for definitions can be found in chapters where the concepts are utilized
Child maltreatment: physical, emotional, or sexual abuse of a child or neglect (the failure to provide for a child’s basic physical, medical, emotional, or educational needs, or failing to appropriately supervise a child).
Contraceptive desert: lacking reasonable access to a health center offering the full range of contraceptive methods. Reasonable access is at least one clinician or health center that is able to provide all contraceptive methods for every 1,000 women in need of publicly funded contraception.
Cross cultural care: learning how to transcend one’s own culture in order to form a positive therapeutic alliance with patients from other cultures
Culture: the integrated pattern of human behaviors that includes thoughts, communications, languages, practices, beliefs, values, customs, courtesies, rituals, manners of interacting and roles, relationships and expected behaviors of a racial, ethnic, religious or social group; and the ability to transmit the above to succeeding generations
Disaster: a sudden, calamitous event that seriously disrupts the functioning of a community or society, causing human, material, and economic or environmental loses that exceed the community’s or society’s ability to cope using its own resources
Elder abuse: intentional acts or the failure to act by a caregiver or another person in a relationship involving an expectation of trust that causes or creates serious physical, emotional, sexual, or financial harm to an older adult.
Epidemiology: the study of the distribution and determinants of health-related states or events in specified populations, and the application of this study to the control of health problems
Equity: the absence of avoidable or remediable differences among groups of people, whether those groups are defined socially, economically, demographically, or geographically
Global North: a group based on a geographic and economic divide, inclusive of relatively richer countries within the global sphere; includes the United States, Canada, Europe, developed parts of Asia (Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan) as well as Australia and New Zealand
Global South: a group based on a geographic and economic divide, inclusive of relatively poorer countries within the global sphere; includes countries mostly located in tropical regions and in the Southern Hemisphere
Health: a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity
Health disparities: a particular type of health difference that is closely linked with social, economic and/or environmental disadvantage
Health equity: fair distribution of health determinants, outcomes, and resources within and between segments of the population, regardless of social standing
Health literacy: the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions
Healthy People: a US government program from the ODPHP that identifies US health improvement priorities and sets 10-year goals and targets
Herd immunity: the circumstance in which a sufficient proportion of the population is protected from a disease such that transmission among members is unlikely is insufficient to protect unvaccinated members
Information literacy: being able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information
Interprofessional education: when two or more professions learn about, from and with each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes
Intimate partner violence: Physical violence, sexual violence, stalking, and psychological aggression (including coercive tactics) by a current or former intimate partner.
Pharmacoepidemiology: the study of the use and effects/side-effects of drugs in large numbers of people with the purpose of supporting the rational and cost-effective use of drugs in the population thereby improving health outcomes
Preventive medicine: delivery of medical care that is focused on the health of individuals, communities, and defined populations in order to protect, promote, and maintain health and well-being and to prevent disease, disability, and death
Social determinants of health: the conditions in which individuals live, work, and play that can affect health outcomes
Telepharmacy: the provision of services by pharmacists to patients or their caregivers through the use of technology to provide cost-effective routine and highly specialized clinical services in remote areas where the need may be greatest
