BASIC DEFINITIONS

DR. AIMAN ASLAM

 COMMUNITY MEDICINE
Comprehensive delivery of health care
services by the health care workers to the
community in order to improve the health of
the community.
 HEALTH
Health is a state of complete physical, mental
and social well being and not merely an
absence of a disease and infirmity.
 DISEASE
A condition in which body health is impaired.
It is not static entity but a process which
begins before man is actually affected by a
living and non-living agent in the environment
in which he lives.
 ILLNESS
It is a phenomena in which one or more
natural functions of the body are so disturbed
that the effected individual cannot meet the
natural requirements of every day.
 INFECTION
The process of introduction of micro-
organisms into human host, followed by their
multiplication within the body at the expenses
of the host.
 INFESTATION
It is the state of having a parasite in or on the
body which includes arthropods or animal
parasites.
 INFECTIOUS DISEASE
It is the state of disorders that results from an
infection if the secondary determinants favour
the occurrence of disease e.g. cholera,
diphtheria, tuberculosis, measles chickenpox .
 COMMUNICABLE DISEASE
A communicable disease in a person is a state
of disorder that results from the entrance of
organism, parasite that are pathogenic and
can be communicated to other individuals in
the community.
 SUSCEPTIBLE PERSON
A person in whom the defensive powers are
lacking is called susceptible person. If the
number of susceptible individuals is very large
in a community, the organisms of a particular
disease are likely to spread rapidly in that
community and the disease is termed
endemic disease.
 SPORADIC
If the number of the immune persons is
greater than the susceptible, the disease is
said to be sporadic.
 EPIDEMIOLOGY
It is the study of disease and disease attributes
in a defined population. It is concerned with
distribution and etiology of the disease.
 INCIDENCE
The rate of occurrence of new cases in a
defined population in a period of time.
 PREVALENCE
The prevalence of a health related state in a
statistical population is defined as the total
number of cases of risk factor in the
population at a given time, or the total
number of cases in the population, divided by
the number of individuals in the population. It
is used as an estimate of how common a
disease is within a population over a certain
period of time.
 EPIDEMIC
Any disease (infection or chronic) occurring at
a greater frequency than usually expected in a
defined community over a given period of
time.
 ENDEMIC
Constant presence of a disease or an
infectious agent within a given population
group without importation from outside.
 PANDEMIC
It is an epidemic of infectious disease the is
spreading through human populations across
a large region; for instance multiple continents
or even worldwide.
 INCUBATION PERIOD
It is the time period which elapses between
the entry of infectious agent into the body of
the host and the appearance of the first
symptom of the disease.
 INFECTIVE PERIOD
It denotes the time interval during which an
infectious agent can be transferred from a
reservoir (patient) to the susceptible host.
 INSECT VECTOR
It is one which is capable of transmitting the
disease under natural conditions. Species of
anopheles mosquitoes are vectors for malaria.
 CARRIER
A carrier is a person who harbors the micro
organism of a disease and excrete them
without himself suffering from symptoms.