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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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  • 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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  • 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.
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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…
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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…
  • 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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