Definitions

Health : Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely an absence of disease or

infirmity. In recent years, this statement has been amplified to include the ability to lead a socially and economically

productive life.

Health Care : Multitude of services rendered to individuals, families or at communities by the agents of the health services

or professions, for the purpose of promoting, maintaining, monitoring or restoring health.

Health System : The human and material resources that a nation or community deploys to preserve, protect, and restore

health and to minimise suffering caused by disease and injury, and the corresponding administrative and organisational

arrangements.

Health Team : A group of persons who share a common health goal and common objectives, determined by community

needs and toward the achievement of which each member of the team contributes in accordance with his/her competence

and skills, BD respecting the functions of them other.

Disease Control : The disease agent is permitted to persist in the community at a level where it cease to be a public

health problem according to the tolerance of the local population.

Disease Elimination : The interruption of transmission of disease from large geographic regions or areas. Eg. measles,

polio, diphtheria

Disease Eradication : The termination of all transmission of infection by extermination of the infectious agent. Eg.

smallpox

Monitoring : The performance and analysis of routine measurements aimed at detecting changes in the environment or

health status of population.

Surveillance : Continuous analysis, interpretation, and feedback not systemically collected data, generally using methods

distinguished by their practicality, uniformity, and rapidity rather than by accuracy or completeness.

Agent Factor : Substance or a force the excess or lack of which may initiate or perpetuate a disease process.

Risk Factor : Attribute or exposure that is significantly associated with development of a disease.
Prevention : To intercept or oppose the cause and thereby the disease process.

Primordial Prevention : Prevention of the emergence or development of risk factors in countries or population groups in

which they have not appeared yet.

Primary Prevention : Action taken prior to the onset of disease, which removes the possibility that disease will ever occur.

Secondary Prevention : Action which halts the progress of a disease at its incipient stage and prevents complications.

Tertiary Prevention : All measures available to reduce or limit impoairments and disabilities, minimise swuffering cause

by existing departures form good health and to promote the patients;s adjustment to irremediable conditions.

Health Promotion : The process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve health.

Impairment : Any loss or abnormality of psychological, physiological or anatomical structure or function.

Disability : Any restriction or lack of ability to perform an activity in the manner or within range considered normal for a

human being.

Handicap : A disadvantage for a given individual, resulting from an impairment or a disability, that limits or prevents the

fulfilment of a role that is normal for that individual.

Rehabilitation : The combined and coordinated use of medical, social, educational and vocational measures for training

and retraining the individual to the highest possible level of functional ability.

Public Health : The science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting physical health and efficiency

through organized community efforts and systematic social action, which will ensure to every individual, in the community, a

standard of living adequate for maintenance of health.

Community Health : All the personal health and environmental services in any human community, irrespective of whether

such services were public or private ones.

Social Medicine : The study of man as a social being in his total environment.
Community Medicine : The field concerned with the study of health and disease in the population of a defined community

or group.

Epidemiology : The study of the occurrence and distribution of health-related events, states and processes in specified

populations, including the study of the determinants influencing such processes, and the application of this knowledge to

control relevant health problems.

Incidence : The number of new cases occurring in a defined population during a specified period of time.

Prevalence : All current cases (old and new) existing at a given point in time, or over a period of time in a given population.

Observational Studies : Allow nature to take its own course; the investigator measures but does not intervene.

Infection : The entry and development or multiplication of an infectious agent in an organism, including the body of man or

animals.

Contamination : The presence of an infectious agent on a body surface; also on or in clothes, beddings, toys, surgical

instruments or dressings, or other inanimate articles or substances.

Infestation : The lodgement, development and reproduction of arthropods on the surface of the body or in clothing.

Source : The person, animal, object or substance which an infectious agent passes or is disseminated to the host.

Reservoir : Any person, animal, arthropod, plant, soil or substance in which an infectious agent lives and multiplies, on

which it depends primarily for survival, and where it reproduces itself in such manner that it can be transmitted to a

suscpetible host.

Cases : A person in the population or study group identified as having a particular disease.
Carriers : An infected person or animal that harbours a specific infectious agent in the absence of discernible clinical

disease and serves as a potential source of infection for others.

Incubation Period : The time interval between invasion by an infectious agent and the appearance of the first sign or

symptom of the disease in question.

Generation Time : The interval of time between receipt of infection by a host and maximal infectivity of that host.

Vaccine : An immune-biological substance designed to produce specific protection against a given disease.

Cold Chain : System of storage and transport of vaccines at low temperature from the manufacturer to the actual

vaccination site.

Adverse Events Following Immunization : Any untoward medical occurrence which follows immunisation and which

does not necessarily have a causal relationship with the usage of the vaccine.

Screening : The search for unrecognised disease or defect by means of rapidly applied tests, examinations or other

procedures in apparently healthy individuals.

Demography : Scientific study of changes, composition and distribution of human population.

Family Planning : A way of thinking and living that is adopted voluntarily, upon the basis of knowledge, attitudes and

responsible decisions by individuals and couples, in order to promote health and welfare of the family group and thus

contribute effectively to the social development of a country.

Eligible Couple : A currently married couple wherein the wife is in the reproductive age which is assumed to lie between

the aes of 15 and 45.

Abortion : Termination of pregnancy before the foetus becomes viable (fixed administratively at 28 weeks).
Antenatal Care : Care provided by skilled health-care professionals to pregnant women and pregnant adolescent girls in

order to ensure the best health conditions for both mother and baby during pregnancy.

Low Birth Weight : Any infant with a birth weight of less than 2.5kg regardless of gestational age.

Preterm Baby : Babies born alive before 37 weeks of pregnancy are completed.

Small for Date Baby : Babies who weigh less than 10th percentile for the gestational age.

Kangaroo Mother care : Used for LBW, four components : skin to skin positioning of baby on chest ; adequate nutrition

through breatst-feeding ; ambulatory care ; support for mother and her family in caring for baby.

Growth : Increase in the physical size of the body

Development : Increase in skills and functions.

Growth Chart : A visible display of the child’s physical growth and development. ICDS chart shows normal zone of weight

for age, undernutrition (below -2SD) and severely underweight zone (below -3SD).

Health Care : Services provided to individuals or communities by agents of the health services or professions, for the

purpose of promoting, maintaining, monitor or restoring health.

Primary Health Care : Essential health care made universally accessible to individuals and acceptable to them, through

their full participation and at a cost the community and country can afford.

Glycemic Index : The are under the two-hours blood glucose response curve following the ingestion of a fixed portion of

test carbohydrate (usually 50g) as a proportion of the AUC of the standard.

Dietary Fibres : The remnants of the edible part of plants and analogous carbohydrates that are resistant to digestion and

absorption in the human small intestine with complete o partial fermentation in the human large intestine.

Recommended Dietary Allowance : Average daily dietary intake level sufficient to meet the nutrient requirement of nearly

all (97-98 %) healthy individuals in a particular life stage and gender group.

Food Safety : Scientific discipline describing handling, preparation and storage of food in ways that prevent foodborne

illness.
Estimated Average Requirement : Average daily nutrient intake level estimated to meet the requirement of half of the

healthy individuals in a a particular life stage and gender group.

Balanced Diet : One which contains a variety of foods in such quantities and proportions that the need for energy, amino

acids, vitamins, minerals, fats, carbohydrate and other nutrients is adequately met for maintaining health, vitality and

general well-being and also make a small provision for extra nutrients to withstand short duration of leanness.

Malnutrition : A pathological state resulting from a relative or absolute deficiency or excess of one or more essential

nutrients.

Food Surveillance : All conditions and measures that are necessary during the production, processing, storage,

distribution and preparation of food to ensure that it is safe, sound, wholesome and fit for human consumption.

Food Additives : Non-nutritious substances which are added intentionally to food, generally in small quantity, to improve

its appearance, flavour, texture or storage properties.

Food Fortification : Process whereby nutrients are added to foods (in small quantities) to maintain or improve the quality

of the diet of a group, a community, or a population.

Family : Group of individuals related by blood, marriage, or adoption living together and eating from a common kitchen.

Social Security : Security that society furnishes through approptriate organization, against certain risks to which its

members are exposed.

Wholesome Water : Water intended for humans consumption, free from : pathogenic agents ; harmful chemical

substances ; colour and odour ; and usable for domestic purposes.

Hardness of Water : Soap destroying power of water.

Overcrowding : Situation in which more people are living within a single dwelling than there is space for, so that

movement is restricted, privacy secluded, hygiene impossible, rest and sleep difficult.

Sewage : Waste water from a community, containing solid and liquid excreta, derived from houses, street and guard

washings, factories and industries.

Sullage : Waste water without human excreta.

Zoonoses : Disease and infections which are naturally transmitted between vertebrate animals and man.

Bio-medical Waste : Any waste, generated during the diagnosis, treatment or immunization of human beings or animals,

or in research activities pertaining thereto or in production or testing of biologicals.

Disaster : A catastrophe, mishap, calamity or grave occurrence in any area, arising from natural or manmade cases, or by

accident or negligence which results in substantial loss of life or human suffering or damage to, and destruction of property,

or damage to, or degradation of, environment and is such a nature or magnitude as to be beyond the coping capacity of the

affected area.

Disaster Management : Systematic process of using administrative decisions, organisations, operational skills and

capacities to implement policies, strategies and coping capacities of the society and communities to lessen the impact of

natural hazards and related environmental lawns technological disasters.

Triage : Rapidly classifying the injured on the basis of the severity of their injuries and the likelihood of their survival with

prompt medical intervention, instead of “first come, first treated”.

Disaster Preparedness : A programmed of long-term development activities whose goals are to strengthen the overall

capacity and capability of a country to manage efficiently all types of emergency. It should bring about an orderly transition

from relief through recovery, and back to sustained development.

Occupational Health : Promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical, mental and social well-being of

workers in all occupations; prevention among workers of depoartures from health caused by their working conditions;

protection of workers in their employment form risks resulting from factors adverse to health; placing and maintenance of

the worker in an occupational environment. Adaptation of work to man and of each man to his job.

improvement of human efficiency and well-being.

Ergonomics : Fitting the job to the worker. To achieve the best mutual adjustment of man and his work, for the

Mental Health : Mental health is a state of well-being in which an individual realises his or her own abilities, can cope with

the normal stress of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.

Health Information System : A mechanism for the collection, processing, analysis and transmission of information

required for organ zing and operating health services, and also for research and training.

Census : The total process of collecting, compiling and publishing demographic, economic and asocial data pertaining at a

specified time or times, to all persons in a country or delimited territory.

Health Education : The process by which individuals and groups of people learn to behave in a manner conducive to the

promotion, maintenance or restoration of health.

Health Planning : The orderly process of defining community health proiblems, identifying unmet needs and surveying

health resources to meet them, establishing priority goals that are realistic and feasible and projecting administrative action

to accomplish the purpose of th eproposed programme.

Health Needs : Deficiencies in health that call for preventive, curative, control or eradication measures.

Resources : The manpower, money, materials, skill, knowledge, techniques and time needed or available for the

performance or support of action directed towards specified objectives.

Management : The purposeful and effective use of resources for fulfilling a pre-determined objective.

Administration : Getting things done.

Mental Health : Mental health is a state of well-being in which an individual realises his or her own abilities, can cope with
Ergonomics : Fitting the job to the worker. To achieve the best mutual adjustment of man and his work, for the