Topic Discussions

Communicable disease

Non Communicable Diseases

Burden of Disease

S
- the diseases that are caused by infectious agents and
can be transmitted from an infected person to other
people, animals, or other sources in the environment.
- are also called

infectious diseases

transmissible diseases.
 Caused by direct or indirect
spread of pathogens

Communicable
Diseases
from a person or thing to
another

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• direct transmission
- the infectious agent is transferred
through close physical contact

. Indirect transmission

- the agent is transferred through air,

water, or other vectors.
 • After these agents enter the body of a healthy
individual, the organism undergoes a period of time
called the incubation period. Once this period is over,
the symptoms of the disease begin to appear
-disease causing
agents

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 Vectors
-disease-causing organisms that carry
pathogens from one host to another

For example
Mosquitoes transmit malaria
Ticks transmit Lyme disease

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Direct contact - touching
infected area of person

Indirect - sneezing, coughing,

sharing personal items
Contact with vectors (animals
and insects) - bites

Other contact - eating contaminated

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foods
 Mouth
Eyes

Nose

A break in skin (cuts)

Bloodstream
Where Diseases Enter
The Body Bodily fluid
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 Non-communicable diseases
-not transferred from an infected person to another
via any means

- mostly caused by factors like improper

lifestyle and eating habits.

-called non-contagious or non-infectious

diseases.
• Most non-communicable diseases are caused due to
an unhealthy diet and lifestyle.

-other causes like mutations, heredity and

environmental changes might also trigger some
non-communicable diseases.
physical, chemical, biological, and work related factors that affect a person’s health
Environmental risks to health include pollution, radiation, noise, land use
patterns, work environment, and climate change.
 • Non-communicable diseases, unlike communicable
diseases, are not seasonal and might occur at any time of
the year.

• Diseases like cancer and diabetes might even be

hereditary, which are inherited from parents to the
offsprings.
• These diseases are also more chronic as the symptoms
appear gradually and thus are difficult to diagnose.

. Most of the non-communicable diseases pose severe

and long-lasting health effects on the patients.
• Some chronic non-communicable diseases might even
have periods of temporary relapse where the disease
disappears for a short period of time regularly only to
reappear again.

• There are no specific treatments available for most

non-communicable diseases, and the available
medicines simply prevent the disease from getting
worse. Most non-communicable diseases are not
curable.
 • However, maintaining a proper and healthy
eating habit and lifestyle with regular check-ups
are essential preventive measures against
non-communicable diseases.
Burden of Disease
 DEFINITION

- is the impact of a health problem as

measured by financial cost, mortality,
morbidity, or other indicators.
 The human and economic costs
that result from poor health are
frequently described as burden of
disease.
How is burden of disease
usually understood and
measured?
Typical Measures of
Burden Of Disease
HEALTH ADJUSTED LIFE YEAR
(HALYs)
- umbrella term for population health summary
measure typically used in estimates of the
burden of disease.

- calculate the combined effects of mortality and

morbidity in populations, allowing for comparisons
across illnesses or interventions as well as between
populations
Two Common Approaches
to Measuring HALYs
1. Disability-Adjusted Life
years (DALYs)

2. Quality-Adjusted Life Years

(QALYs)
Burden of disease is
assessed using the
 DALYs
disability-adjusted life year

- a time-based measure that combines

years of life lost due to premature mortality
(YLLs) and years of life lost due to time lived
in states of less than full health, or years of
healthy life lost due to disability (YLDs).
 - Measures the difference
between the current state of
the population health and an
ideal situation where
everyone reaches the age of
standard life expectancy in
perfect health
 - based on assumption that "time" is
the most appropriate gauge of burden
of disease.

-the greater the time lived with a disability, or with

disabling results of an illness,or more time lost due to
premature death,the greater the burden of disease is
considered to be.
 One DALY =
represents the loss
of the equivalent of
one year of full
health.
 Primary health care for
noncommunicable diseases
in the Philippines

Valerie Gilbert Ulep, Jhanna Uy, and Lyle Daryll Casas

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs)
are now the leading cause of disease
burden
in the Philippines

In 2019, NCDs accounted for 70% of the total

600,000 deaths, and 65%
of the 33 million disability-adjusted life years
(DALYs)
(Institute for Health Metrics and
Evaluation, 2020).
The main types of NCDs :
cancers

chronic respiratory diseases

cardiovascular diseases

diabetes
.
Quality-Adjusted
Life Years
(QALYs)
- measures both quantity and
quality of life lived.

-used to analyze the cost

effectiveness of clinical (or
public) interventions
 - can compare an intervention
that helps prolong life but has
serious side effects

- intervention that improves the

quality of life without prolonging it
Why should we care about the
concept of burden of disease?

In a world affected by numerous diseases, disabilities and

illnesses, how do governments, health care providers,
media or the general public decide which ones are most
important?
 -If a disease strikes close to home, everyone affected will naturally
consider that condition to be of utmost importance

-public health practitioners and policy-makers have a responsibility to

ensure the health of all.
 Understanding which diseases pose the greatest threat to health and
well-being helps public health practitioners and policy-makers decide
how to use limited resources for maximum benefit. They can plan
interventions and deliver services to enhance prevention, control the
spread of disease, improve disease outcomes, and reduce health
inequities — unfair differences in risk that lead to differences in health
outcomes between individuals and populations.
Fields of epidemiology and
medicine
 It involves gauging the impact of disease and disability on individuals,
from the onset of illness to the outcome — sickness or disability,
recovery or death.

It also involves assessing the potential of medical interventions to alter

the course of diseases and future disability and illness

Information is gathered about how diseases and interventions affect

individuals and these data are combined to create an overall picture of
the health of the population.
 These studies commonly consider burden to include the
following:
Morbidity — the number of people in a population who are unwell or disabled, and
the severity of their illness or disability.

Mortality — the number of people in a population who die as a result of a specific

disease or disability, and whether or not their deaths are considered premature (before
the expected duration of life).

Trends — morbidity and mortality patterns within and among populations over time
and from one disease to another.

Risk attribution — some studies also comment on links between illness, disability or
death outcomes and recognized risk factors.
 Economic
focuses on the financial costs of illnesses for individuals, households,
healthcare systems and societies.
 Researchers and policy-makers measuring economic burden of
disease are interested in:

Direct costs — the value of expenditures on prevention, diagnosis, and treatment,

such as immunization and screening programs, in-hospital and out-patient care,
visits to physicians and medications;

Indirect costs — the value of labour and productivity losses, such as lost income and
economic output due to illness-related absences from work, reduced productivity at
work due to illness or lost productivity in an industry due to premature deaths in the
labour force.