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79 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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agriculture
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The cultivation of land for the purpose of crop production and/or the rearing of livestock, primarily for food, but also to provide materials, e.g. for fuel, clothing and shelter.
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urbanisation
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The process of urban development, i.e. of towns and cities, and the movement of an increasing proportion of a country’s population from rural to urban environments.
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biodiversity
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Abbreviation of ‘biological diversity’, defined by the United Nations Convention on ? as ‘the variability among living organisms from all sources, including terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems’.
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developed countries
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Countries that provide universal education for their children, with populations that have high rates of literacy, comprehensive health services and which meet certain other development indicators, such as 100% access to safe drinking water and sanitation. Their economies grew rapidly in the early 20th century as a result of industrialisation, and they include all the richest nations on Earth.
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developing countries
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Countries that are only partly industrialised and where national wealth is below that of the developed economies. They rely to a much greater degree than developed countries on subsistence farming, small industrial businesses and low-paid unskilled or low-skilled labour. Major indicators of development, such as literacy and provision of clean water vary hugely between these countries. In some classifications, the countries of the former Soviet Union are included in the ‘developing’ group; in others they are classed as ‘transitional economies’.
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infant mortality rate (IMR)
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An internationally recognised health indicator, defined as the number of babies in every 1000 live births who die in their first year of life.
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bar chart
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A simple way of presenting numerical data visually, so as to emphasise the relative size of different numbers. Bars may be arranged vertically or horizontally.
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natural selection
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A process causing evolutionary change over time (from one generation to the next). Individuals that hold an advantage in terms of survival and reproduction, in competition with other individuals, will pass on characteristics that contribute to that advantage to successive generations, provided that those characteristics have a genetic basis. As a result, these characteristics become more common in the population over successive generations.
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adaptive
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A characteristic of an organism is said to be adaptive if an individual possessing that characteristic has an advantage over other members of the same species in terms of survival or reproduction; e.g. ability to evade predators, attractiveness to the opposite sex.
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mammals
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A class of animals characterised by having the body covered in hair, by having a four-chambered heart, and by feeding their young on milk produced by the female.
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primates
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A group of mammals including monkeys, apes and humans, with limbs adapted for climbing, leaping and swinging, reflecting their arboreal (tree-living) habits or origins, and characterised by having large brains in relation to body size, a short snout and large eyes that point forwards, providing stereoscopic vision.
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hominids
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A group of primates, to which modern humans belong, characterised by upright posture and a very large brain in relation to body size.
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bipedality
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The ability to stand, walk and run, supported only by the hind limbs.
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evolutionary trade-off
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An aspect of a characteristic that represents an adaptive compromise between two opposing evolutionary pressures; e.g. the human pelvis represents a compromise between being narrow, which is necessary for running at speed, and being wide, which is necessary for giving birth to a baby with a large head.
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proxy measure
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A readily measured statistic or parameter that can be used in place of a more complex statistic, or to ‘stand in for’ one that is impossible to measure directly; e.g. disease statistics are often used as ?s of the ‘health’ of a population; the number of prescriptions for antidepressants can be used as a ? for the number of people with depression in a population.
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scatter plot
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A graphical method of showing whether two numerical variables are related to one another. They are called ‘variables’ because they can each have a range of possible values. Each data point on a ? represents a particular entity, such as a country, for which the two variables have been measured.
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child mortality rate
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The number of children who die under five years of age in a given year, usually expressed as a rate per 1000 live births.
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pandemic
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An epidemic on a world-wide scale.
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epidemic
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An outbreak of an infectious disease in a community, region or country, characterised by a sharp increase in the number of cases, followed after an interval by a decline to a normal level.
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selection pressure
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The environmental factors impacting on survival and reproduction in a population of organisms in which there is variation between individuals in their ability to withstand adverse conditions or benefit from advantageous circumstances. The result of a ? (e.g. exposure to antibiotics in bacterial populations) is that individuals who are best adapted to withstand it or benefit from it leave a larger proportion of offspring in the next generation, while those who are less well adapted suffer reproductive disadvantage.
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antibiotic resistance
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The ability of bacteria which have acquired a resistance gene to survive the action of an antibiotic drug that kills antibiotic-sensitive bacteria from the same strain.
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body mass index (BMI)
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A measure of body weight, taking height into account. A person’s ? is calculated by dividing their weight (mass) in kilograms (kg) by their height in metres squared (m2). In most assessments based on ?, people with a ? of 20.0–24.9 are considered to be of normal healthy weight, those with a ? of less than 20.0 are categorised as underweight, a ? of 25.0 to 29.9 is said to be overweight, and a ? greater than 30.0 is clinically obese.
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stunting
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Being shorter at a given age by a specified amount below the population average.
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obesity
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A condition in which a person exceeds a certain threshold for the proportion of body weight that consists of fat. In most assessments based on body mass index, a BMI of greater than 30 is defined as clinically obese.
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stress response
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A physiological reaction occurring in the body, triggered by the perception of aversive or threatening situations.
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acute condition
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An acute condition is a disease or disorder characterised by rapid onset, severe symptoms and short duration, from which the patient either recovers quickly or dies.
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chronic condition
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A ? is a disease or disorder that often has a gradual onset, involves slowly changing symptoms and lasts for a long time.
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stress
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The experience of being in an unpleasant situation, over a period of days, weeks or longer, in which one is unable to exert control over circumstances which are not of one’s choosing. The coping resources necessary to meet the demands of this unpleasant situation are lacking.
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epidemiology
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The statistical study of the occurrence, distribution, potential causes and control of diseases and disabilities in human populations.
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hypothesis
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A clearly stated provisional explanation for a set of observations or data, devised for the purpose of testing its validity by the collection of additional data or by conducting an experiment.
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incidence
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The ? of a condition is the number of new cases diagnosed in a population in a given period, usually one year.
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prevalence
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The ? of a disease, disorder or disability is the total number of people who have the condition at a particular point in time, regardless of how long they have been affected.
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mortality data
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Counts of deaths.
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injuries
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A widely used category of epidemiological data, which is divided into unintentional (i.e. accidental) ?, e.g. in traffic accidents, falls, fires, drowning, accidental poisoning and natural disasters, and intentional ?, which include self-inflicted harm and ? sustained in inter-personal violence and warfare.
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infectious and parasitic diseases
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Also known as ‘communicable’ diseases, because they can be passed directly from one person to another, or indirectly via food, water, etc.; some are transmitted by intermediate organisms (e.g. mosquitoes transmit the malaria parasite).
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microbes
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Microscopic organisms (bacteria, fungi and protoctists), together with viruses, whether pathogenic (disease-causing) or harmless; also known as microorganisms.
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pathogens
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Microbes that cause disease.
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non-communicable diseases
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Diseases that cannot be transmitted from person to person (also known as ‘non-infectious diseases’), which mainly develop slowly over time and persist for a long period, or are irreversible, and are often referred to as chronic conditions; e.g. cancers, heart disease, respiratory diseases, diabetes, cirrhosis of the liver, and neuropsychiatric conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.
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SI Units
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(SI stands for the French Système Internationale). The term given to those units of measurement that scientists all over the world have agreed to use in their publications; e.g. the second (abbreviated to s) is the standard unit for time, kilogram (kg) is the SI unit for the mass of an object, and metre (m) for the size of objects or the distance between objects.
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powers of ten
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A form of notation (also known as ‘scientific notation’) used for expressing very large or very small numbers; e.g. 1 million can be expressed as 10 6, 1 millimetre as 10 −3 metres.
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disability adjusted life year (DALY)
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A measure of the real impact of a particular disease, disorder or disability on people’s lives, combining an estimate of the number of years lived with a reduced quality of life, taking into account the severity of the condition (every condition is assigned a ‘weighting factor’ to reflect this), and the number of years of life lost if the person dies prematurely, based on their age and the average life expectancy in that population.
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proportional morbidity
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The share of the total number of death in a population which is due to a particular cause; it is usually expressed as a percentage.
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risk factor
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Anything which is statistically associated in a population with an increased chance of developing a particular disease, disorder or disability; when the incidence of the disease is examined in different populations it is found to occur more frequently in those who have been exposed to the risk factor than in those who have not, or whose exposure level has been lower.
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transpiration
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The release of water vapour by plants.
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water-borne infectious diseases
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Diseases in which the pathogen causing the disease lives part of its life cycle in water; e.g. cholera, cryptosporidiosis.
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diarrhoeal diseases
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Diseases involving the frequent passing of liquid faeces; they are caused by a wide variety of pathogens, including viruses, bacteria and protoctists (single-celled organisms).
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immunodeficiency
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A condition in which the immune system fails to respond normally to an infection; it can be caused by a genetic defect and by HIV/AIDS, as well as by malnutrition.
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incubation period
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The time between a pathogen entering its host and the host beginning to show disease symptoms; the period varies from one infectious disease to another.
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toxin
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A poisonous substance produced by a living organism, usually injurious to potential prey, predators or competitors.
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infectious dose
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The number of individual pathogens required to cause disease in an infected person; the number varies from one infectious disease to another.
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‘point-of-use’ strategy
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A method of purifying water, e.g. filtering, that involves individual people treating water as they use it, rather than having purified water delivered to them from a remote water-treatment plant in pipes.
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chemical compound
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A substance made up of two or more elements; it may be composed of molecules or ions.
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molecule
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Two or more atoms held together by chemical bonds, e.g. hydrogen (H2), water (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2).
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atom
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The smallest unit of an element that still has the properties of the element. Atoms are made up of a nucleus, containing protons and neutrons, surrounded by electrons.
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element
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A substance that cannot be broken down into a simpler substance; it is composed of just one type of atom; e.g. hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sodium, chlorine, mercury.
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ion
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An electrically charged atom or molecule. An ion may be positively or negatively charged; e.g. Na+ (the positively charged sodium ion) and Cl− (the negatively charged chloride ion).
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solvent
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A substance (usually liquid) in which other substances dissolve.
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polar molecule
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A molecule that has both negatively and positively charged regions.
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ionic compound
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A substance composed of positively and negatively charged ions, held together by the electrical attraction between opposite charges. Salts such as sodium chloride (NaCl) are ionic compounds in which the ions are organised in a regular crystal lattice.
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heat capacity
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The quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of a body, or a quantity of liquid, by 1 °C, measured in joules (J) per °C.
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hydrogen bond
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The electrical attraction between the partial positive charge on a hydrogen atom attached to an electron-attracting atom (usually oxygen or nitrogen) and the partial negative charge on another atom (usually oxygen or nitrogen). Hydrogen bonds are responsible for maintaining the complex three-dimensional structure of large organic molecules such as proteins and DNA.
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xenobiotic
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Literally meaning ‘alien to nature’, refers to chemicals in the natural environment that are of human origin.
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organic
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Arising from the bodies of plants, animals or other organisms; e.g. organic matter refers to material derived from the tissues and cells of organisms. By extension, organic compounds were originally chemicals derived from or resembling the chemicals of which organisms are made, but now taken to be any compounds based on the element carbon.
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toxicology
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The study of toxins and their effects on living organisms.
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ecotoxicology
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The study of the fate of chemical contaminants in the natural environment and their effects on plants, animals and ecosystems.
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ecosystems
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Recognisable assemblages of plants and animals, such as woodland, grassland, rivers, etc., in which a distinct set of plants and animals live together and interact with one another.
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bioaccumulation
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The build-up of levels of a chemical contaminant in the bodies of animals at successive levels in a food chain.
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endocrine disruptors
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Industrial chemicals, commonly found as environmental pollutants, that disrupt the hormonal systems of animals, including humans.
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endocrine system
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A system of glands (also known as ductless glands), each of which secretes one or more hormones directly into the bloodstream.
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hormone
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A substance produced by an endocrine gland that is carried by the bloodstream to other organs or tissues where it acts to alter their structure or function.
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receptor
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A complex specialised molecule embedded in the outer membrane of a cell, or in its internal structure, which has a unique three-dimensional shape and patterns of electrical charge that enable it to bind specifically to a particular signalling molecule (e.g. a hormone or neurotransmitter). When the signalling molecule binds to its specific receptor, a response is initiated in the cell of which the receptor is a part.
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hydroxyl group
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An atom of hydrogen and an atom of oxygen bonded together (usually written as \OH in chemical formulae), which is bonded to an organic molecule; hydroxyl groups can form hydrogen bonds with other polar molecules. (See also ‘hydrogen bond’, ‘organic’ and ‘polar molecule’.)
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disinfectant
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A chemical that reduces microbial contamination of water, surfaces, etc.
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incidence rate
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The number of new cases in a given period, usually a year, expressed as a rate per 1000 (or per 10 000, or per 100 000 or per million) population.
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morbidity rate
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The number of cases of a disease, disorder or disability in a population, relative to the total number of people at risk of developing it; usually expressed as the number of cases per 1000 (or per 10 000, or per 100 000 or per million) population.
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mortality rate
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The number of deaths in a population, either from all causes combined or from a specific cause, expressed as a rate per 1000 (or per 10 000, or per 100 000 or per million) people in the population.
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polyatomic ions
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A small group of atoms bonded together which carry an overall electrical charge; e.g. the bicarbonate ion (HCO3−) and the nitrate ion (NO3−) are polyatomic.
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prevalence rate
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The total number of people who have a disease, disorder or disability at a particular point in time, expressed as a rate per 1000 (or per 10 000, or per 100 000 or per million) population.
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proportional mortality
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The proportion (share) of all deaths in a population which is due to a particular cause; it is usually expressed as a percentage.
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