DICTIONARY By Megan Louttit Deanna Shuster Shereen Beruti Christina Ferrazzano and Seema Kella Note to reader The following is a list of words and definitions commonly used in public health literature and in this on line textbook All words marked with an asterisk have been synthesized from a combination of several on line dictionaries The list of dictionaries can be found at the end of the document All words marked with a superscript number 1 have been cited from a dictionary source which can be found at the end of the document A Abortion4 Giving birth to an embryo or fetus before the fetus is capable of independent life about the 20th week of gestation or after reaching about 500 grams 1 pound 2 ounces in weight A premature birth is one which occurs after the infant is generally capable of independent life An abortion may be either spontaneous without outside assistance or induced the result of efforts to cause the abortion Abuse1 General misuse or improper treatment Access to health care1 The ability to obtain health care and to have readily available physicians and facilities to meet one s health care needs Accreditation To certify that an individual organization educational institution etc meets and maintains suitable standards Accredited Record Technician ART 7 A medical technician who has passed a credential examination of the American Medical Record Association A medical record technician is a person who carries out certain technical duties with respect to medical records The formal training of an ART is somewhat less than that of the medical record administrator Acculturation The process of cultural change in patterns as a result of contact with another culture both or either of the cultures may be changed while maintaining their distinctive identity Action plan A specific procedure of method to achieve results called for by one or more objectives Activities director7 The individual responsible for providing activities to patients in a long term care facility in order to promote continuing involvement in activities of daily living and to retard or prevent disabilities Activities of daily living These activities are used to determine the functional status of a person usually used to assess elderly for the need of a nursing home included in these activities are breathing personal hygiene ability to feed oneself personal device care hearing aids glasses and mobility Actuary1 A person who specializes in the estimation of risks for insurance companies Acute1 Having a short course which is usually relatively severe with respect to an illness Acute care1 Care for short term patients Addiction1 Psychological and or physical dependence on a substance or practice Admission pattern monitoring7 The monitoring of the distribution of kinds of patients admitted to a hospital that is of the admission case mix in order to detect changing needs for services displacement of patients to other institutions or other changes Advanced emergency medical procedures7 A term sometimes applied to procedures which an emergency medical technician paramedic may perform but which lower levels of EMT s may not perform Such procedures may include for example insertion of a tube in the patient s airway for assistance in breathing and administration of certain drugs Adverse selection4 A situation in which patients with greater than average need for medical and hospital care enroll in a prepaid health plan in greater numbers than they occur in a cross section of the population A plan that somehow encouraged or allowed people to sign up when they were already ill would suffer from adverse selection Advisory group model Coalition model composed of important community groups that extends a farther reach into the community and which can be useful in providing current information about the community to coalition leaders Advocacy1 Attempting to persuade others of a point of view of an issue Aerospace medicine7 The branch of preventive medicine that deals with the special problems of flying both within and outside the atmosphere One of the medical specialties for which residency programs have been approved by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education Affiliative leadership style Style based upon a caring and nurturing approach Affiliative leaders attempt to develop trust create harmony and build emotional bonds through the use of continuous positive feedback Agency for Health Care Policy and Research AHCPR 1 A component of the U S Public Health Service The stated mission of this agency is to be the lead agency charged with supporting research designed to improve the quality of health care reduce its cost and broaden access to essential services Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry ATSDR 1 A component of the U S Public Health Service It was created to prevent adverse health effects and diminished quality of life that results from exposure to environmental toxins Aid to families with dependant children6 A federally financed program for single parent families designed to provide welfare for single parents who cannot without this assistance take proper care of the children Aide6 An assistant without professional credentials An aide is one who assists usually without formal training or with less training than the person assisted An aide may also work under the supervision of an agency as in the case of a home health aide Alcoholism4 Chronic dependence on the use of alcohol which leads to interference with health and to social and economic problems Withdrawal of alcohol from a person with alcoholism leads to psychological and physical symptoms Alcohol rehabilitation4 A service that includes services and enables the alcoholic patient to return to normal functioning It is contrasted with alcoholism treatment which confines itself to the acute episode of intoxication Algorithm6 A set of rules for carrying out a process such as the care of a patient with a given set of problems or the calculation of a statistic The rules are such a specific set of steps is required in sequence with each step dependent on the preceding step Allergy6 An acquired condition of the body so that it reacts abnormally to a chemical substance or physical agent such as cold Allied health professional4 A person who is not a physician nurse or pharmacist and who works in the health field An allied health professional may for example be a dietitian an emergency medical technician or an aide Allopathy A medical practice which