Public health (general and overview)

Accident

Accident: an unpremeditated event causing recognizable damage (WHO definition). Public health now prefers "injury"; 4.4 million injury deaths yearly, 90% in low- and middle-income countries, largely preventable via energy-control strategies.

Accident Prevention

Accident prevention, also called injury prevention or safety promotion, is the organized effort to reduce accidental injuries through hazard elimination, engineering controls, regulation, and education, spanning workplace, road, home, and community safety.

Acute toxicity

Acute toxicity: adverse effects from a single dose or doses within 24 hours, by oral, dermal, or inhalation route, quantified by LD50/LC50, used for chemical classification and labelling.

Adverse outcome pathway

An adverse outcome pathway (AOP) is a toxicology framework, introduced by EPA researchers in 2010, that links a chemical's molecular interaction to an adverse health or ecological effect.

Air pollution in India

Air pollution in India: ambient and household air contamination, the country's leading death risk factor with over 2 million deaths in 2023, PM2.5 exposure of 54.1 µg/m³, and the National Clean Air Programme launched in 2019.

Behavior change technique

A behavior change technique (BCT) is an observable, replicable "active ingredient" of an intervention designed to change behavior, such as self-monitoring, goal setting, or reinforcement.

Behaviour change technique

A behavior change technique is an observable, replicable active ingredient of an intervention designed to change behavior, classified by the 2013 BCTTv1 taxonomy of 93 techniques in 16 clusters.

Biological hazard

Biological hazard (biohazard): organic-origin hazards, pathogens, toxins, vectors, pests, affecting humans, animals, plants; foodborne illness sickens 866 million yearly; controlled via biosafety levels and risk assessment.

Oct 20, 2026

Bundesgesundheitsblatt, Gesundheitsforschung, Gesundheitsschutz

Bundesgesundheitsblatt – Gesundheitsforschung – Gesundheitsschutz is a monthly German public health journal edited at the Robert Koch Institute, published by Springer since 1999, ISSN 1436-9990/1437-1588, Impact Factor 1.6 (2025).

Caregiver

Caregiver: a person providing regular care to someone with illness, disability, or age-related needs, usually unpaid family or friends. 63 million U.S. adults caregiving in 2025; $470 billion annual value; RAISE Act 2018.

Chemical hazard

Chemical hazard: the intrinsic capacity of a chemical to harm health or cause physical danger, classified under GHS and OSHA HazCom; distinct from risk, which includes exposure.

Child mortality

Child mortality, the death of children under five (U5MR), fell from 93.5 to 37.4 per 1,000 live births, 1990–2024; 4.9 million under-five deaths in 2024, mostly preventable, concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Oct 20, 2026

Community Health Services

Community Health Services: diagnostic, therapeutic, and preventive health services delivered to individuals in the community (MeSH D003153), spanning community nursing, home care, mental health, and preventive care, delivered by mixed professional teams outside hospitals.

Community Participation

Community participation: involvement of community members in community affairs, central to public health since Alma-Ata 1978; typologies include Arnstein's 1969 ladder and Rifkin's mobilization-collaboration-empowerment continuum.

Consumer Product Safety

Consumer product safety: regulatory measures and standards ensuring non-food consumer goods are safe. Covers the U.S. CPSC (CPSA 1972, CPSIA 2008), EU GPSR, and 2025 UN principles.

Consumption of Tide Pods

Consumption of Tide Pods is the ingestion of liquid laundry detergent packets, mainly by young children and, during the 2018 Tide Pod challenge, by teenagers.

Digital Health

Digital health is the use of digital technologies to improve health, an umbrella term the World Health Organization applies to eHealth, mHealth, telemedicine, big data, genomics, and artificial intelligence.

Dignity of risk

Dignity of risk, also called the right to take reasonable risks, is a care ethics principle coined by Robert Perske in 1972 for people with intellectual disabilities, now embedded in disability and aged care law including Australia's Aged Care Act 2024.

Directly observed therapy

Directly observed therapy (DOT) is a treatment adherence strategy in which a trained observer watches a patient take medication, used chiefly in tuberculosis care worldwide.

Directly observed therapy, short course

Directly observed therapy, short course (DOTS) is a tuberculosis control strategy in which health workers watch patients take a standardized six- to eight-month drug regimen, recommended by WHO since 1991.

Disability

Disability: umbrella term for impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions; affects about 1.3 billion people (16% of humanity). Defined via medical, social, and biopsychosocial models, the WHO ICF, and the CRPD.

Disability-adjusted life year

Disability-adjusted life year (DALY), the Global Burden of Disease metric: DALY = YLL + YLD, one lost year of healthy life; introduced 1993 World Development Report, simplified after GBD 2010.

Elderly care

Elderly care (long-term care for older people) covers personal, social, and medical support for older adults losing capacity. Key facts: informal care is up to 80% of European LTC, 80+ population to triple to 426 million by 2050, and LTC workers average 5 per 100 people 65+ in OECD countries.