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Health Journalism Glossary

Health Equity Glossary

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  • Activated Carbon Filters – Activated carbon filters, also known as activated charcoal filters, are systems used to remove impurities from air, water, and more.
  • Allostatic load – The theory that the accumulated burden of chronic stress creates a common pathway to the onset and progression of many…
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  • Broken Windows effect – The so-called Broken Windows theory has led to initiatives that try to reduce violence by restoring deteriorating neighborhoods, removing or…
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  • Cochlear implant  – A cochlear implant is a small electronic medical device that helps provide a sense of sound to people with severe to profound hearing loss who receive little or no benefit from hearing aids.
  • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)  – Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a structured, goal-oriented form of psychotherapy that aims to help people identify and change negative or unhelpful thought patterns and behaviors.
  • Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) – Cognitive Processing Therapy is a specific type of therapy designed to treat PTSD and other trauma-related mental health conditions.
  • Cultural competency – The ability of health care providers to deliver care and services that take into account the cultural needs of a…
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  • Developmental origins of health and disease – From conception through infancy and early childhood, exposures to certain stresses can alter the trajectory of development in ways that…
  • Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) – Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) combines cognitive-behavioral techniques with concepts of mindfulness, acceptance, and emotion regulation.
  • Dose-response relationship – A dose-response relationship how the magnitude of a biological effect changes with increasing levels of exposure to a certain substance…
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  • Emergency Medicaid – Emergency Medicaid is a limited Medicaid benefit that pays for treatment of emergency medical conditions for people who otherwise meet Medicaid income and residency requirements but are ineligible for full Medicaid coverage, most often because of immigration status
  • Environmental injustice – The disproportionate burden of pollution and other harmful environmental exposures falling mainly on disadvantaged neighborhoods and people with less wealth,…
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  • Financial toxicity – The term “financial toxicity” describes the harmful effects that patients suffer when they cannot afford the costs of health care.
  • Food bank – A food bank is a non-profit organization that safely stores millions of pounds of food the grocers, retailers, restaurants and…
  • Food pantry – A food pantry is a distribution center for hungry individuals and families who need food. Food banks supply food pantries…
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  • Gender-Affirming Care  – Gender-affirming care refers to a range of tailored social, psychological, behavioral, and medical interventions designed to support and affirm an individual’s gender identity when it differs from their sex assigned at birth.
  • Gestational diabetes – Gestational diabetes is a form of diabetes that develops during pregnancy, typically in the second or third trimester, when hormonal changes interfere with the body’s ability to use insulin effectively.
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  • Harm reduction centers – Harm reduction centers are meant to prevent fatal overdoses and connect people who use drugs to health services.
  • Health disparities – Differences in health status experienced by groups of people disadvantaged because of their race, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status, gender, age,…
  • Health equity – An ideal envisioned by public health experts in which all people can achieve their best health without being disadvantaged by…
  • Health in all policies (HiAP) – This public health strategy emerged in Europe and is now gaining traction in the U.S. It calls upon political leaders…
  • Healthy People 2020 – Health People 2020 is a U.S. federal initiative to improve the nation’s health. Key for health care journalists, though, is…
  • Hispanic Community Health Study (SOL Study) – The Hispanic Community Health Study (also known as the SOL Study) is an epidemiological project to study health of Hispanic…
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  • Implicit bias – Learned stereotypes and prejudices that operate automatically and unconsciously when interacting with others. Also referred to as unconscious bias. When…
  • Income inequality – Also known as the wealth gap, the divide between the rich and the poor has come to broadly define income…
  • Index of disparity – Used in statistical analysis. The index is developed based on using the usual categories of social determinations such as education or…
  • Individual behavior – One of the key factors in the social determinant of health, decisions that a person makes and how they act…
  • Institutional racism – This is a term used to describe racism within particular private and public entities such as banks, nonprofits, and school…
  • Ion exchange filters – Ion exchange filters are water treatment systems designed to remove dissolved ions, such as minerals or heavy metals, from water by replacing them with other, less harmful ions.
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  • Jackson Heart Study – The Jackson Heart Study is a longitudinal project to study heart and stroke risk among Black adults; it has been…
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  • Lead toxicity – Sustained exposure to lead can cause long-term health problems, most notably neurological damage. While no level of lead in the…
  • Lifestyle drift – Initiatives that set out to tackle health inequalities often pay lip service to the social determinants of health (quality education,…
  • Loneliness – Feeling alone can have both psychological and physical impacts, from causing aggression or social anxiety to sleep loss, changes in…
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  • Maternal mortality rate – The number of women who die each year per every 100,000 live births. To classify as maternal-related, the death must…
  • Millennial – Members of this generation of young adults include those born between 1992 and 2000. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there…
  • Moral injury – The manifestation of life events that are “extreme and unprecedented” that cross a moral line and can cause harm to…
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  • Nutrigenomics – This up-and-coming field looks at how nutrients from food can impact how one’s individual genes are expressed. This field of…
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  • Person-first language – A communication approach that emphasizes the individual before their condition or disability. 
  • Population health – A term used in the health assessment of an entire group of people. “Population” often refers to those in a…
  • Post-traumatic growth – Positive psychological changes experienced as a result of struggling with highly challenging life circumstances.
  • Premature mortality – An alternative way to compare the health of different populations is to add up the potential years life lost (PYLL)…
  • Psychoneuroimmunology – Sometimes referred to as psychoendoneuroimmunology, psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) is the study of the interaction of the brain and the body. More…
  • Public health – Although sometimes used interchangeably with the term population health, “public health” is increasingly used to reference a narrower set of…
  • Public-charge rule – The public-charge rule is a federal immigration policy used to determine whether a person applying for a visa or lawful permanent residency is likely to become primarily dependent on government assistance.
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  • Racism-conscious health policy – A racism-conscious health policy is one that aims to prevent inequities and mitigate the long-standing effects of discriminatory laws, policies,…
  • Reserve capacity – Higher social standing may help people build psychological resources, or a reserve capacity, to cope with stressors more resiliently so…
  • Resilience – The ability to recover or “bounce back” from difficult situations or challenging circumstances. Such capacity could be at an individual…
  • Reverse osmosis (RO) – Reverse osmosis (RO) systems are advanced water filtration systems that use a semi-permeable membrane to remove contaminants from water.
  • Rural – In general, “rural” refers to places outside of a city, or as HHS’s Health Resources and Services Administration puts it:…
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  • SES-health gradient – Health and longevity tend to decrease with poverty and social isolation, and increase with wealth and social status. This link…
  • Sexual orientation – Sometimes confused with gender identity, sexual orientation refers to one’s attraction to other people based on their sex. Heterosexuals are…
  • Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) – Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) Program datasets are single-year estimates of income and poverty for all U.S. states and counties.
  • Social capital – Unlike traditional wealth, social capital is a nod to the relationship connections in one’s life that cannot be given financial…
  • Social determinants of health – The conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age are mostly responsible for health inequalities—the unfair and…
  • Socioeconomic status (SES) – A person’s social class, or place in the hierarchy of power and self-determination can be quantified using measures of socioeconomic…
  • Structural determinants – Social determinants of health (income, education, social class, etc.) are sometimes referred to as “structural determinants” by those who want…
  • Structural racism – A form of racism that results from the interplay of laws, written and unwritten policies, practices and norms particular to…
  • Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the largest federal nutrition assistance program in the United States.
  • Systemic racism – A form of racism that results from the totality of laws, written and unwritten policies, practices, individual beliefs, personal and…
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  • Targeting with universalism – Providing programs and services in a way that they will be available to everyone, including (and maybe especially) targeting higher-risk…
  • Telomeres – Social disadvantage appears to accelerate aging at the cellular level as indicated by the length of telomeres, the protective sections…
  • Third spaces – Third spaces are social settings separate from home (the first place) and workplace (the second place).
  • Thrombolytics  – Thrombolytics are a class of medications used to dissolve blood clots that have formed in blood vessels. They can be used to treat strokes.
  • Trauma-informed care – A method of care or treatment that seeks to examine a person’s past history of trauma and focus on how…
  • Traumatic stress injury – Some military experts, psychiatrists and other advocates have been pushing for the renaming of post-traumatic stress disorder to post traumatic…
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  • Uncontrollable risk factor – While there are some things people can do that can either increase or decrease their risk for disease, there are…
  • Underserved – Medically underserved populations are those who lack access to health care services such as low-income people, the homeless or other…
  • Upstream medicine – The U.S. health care system is really more of a “sick care” system. Recognizing this, some health professionals have started…
  • Urban – Cities in America have sprawled so much that researchers call them “metropolitan statistical areas,” or MSAs. Urban areas are less…
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  • Weathering hypothesis – Some evidence suggests that greater exposure to adverse social conditions and physical environments produces a chronic stress response that over…
  • Wellness trust – Finding traditional health systems ineffective at addressing the social determinants of health, some communities are trying to establish public trust…
  • Whitehall Study – The Whitehall Study of British Civil Servants, started in 1967, famously showed that men in the lower employment grades were more…
  • Woke science  – Woke science is a politicized term often used pejoratively to describe scientific research, public health guidance, or policy decisions that…

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