Health and disease

• Health: the state of physical and mental wellbeing
• Factors that can cause ill health

  • Disease
  • poor diet
  • stress
  • life situations
• Communicable diseases can spread between organisms, whereas non-communicable diseases can’t spread between organisms
• Ways that different types of diseases can interact

  • People with weaker immune systems are more likely to get communicable diseases
  • some viruses can trigger some types of cancer
  • severe physical health issues can cause mental health issues
  • immune responses to pathogens can trigger rashes and asthma
• Human costs of non-communicable diseases

  • Millions of people around the world die from non communicable diseases
  • non-communicable diseases can reduce people’s lifespan
  • non-communicable diseases can lower people’s quality of life
• Financial costs of non-communicable diseases

  • Health organisations all over the world spend vast amounts of money diagnosing and treating non-communicable diseases
  • Non-communicable diseases can cause people to miss work or make them give it up completely