Knowledge Base

The Competency VI Knowledge Base exists to provide convenient access to current information and references about:

• Structure of the U.S. health care system

  • Major features and forces that led to its current structure

  • Financial and organizational structures (profit and nonprofit) of competing institutions and their roles:

    • The fee-for-service system supported through employment with some governmental support, i.e., Medicare and Medicaid

    • Hospitals, HMOs, physician groups, solo practitioners, managed care schemes

    • Profit and nonprofit insurance companies/reimbursement of hospitals and practitioners

  • Current stresses on the U.S. health care financing system and the potential for change

  • Community and human service resources

  • Public health methodologies and policies

    • Public health, epidemiology, and biostatistics--major concepts and methods (e.g., sensitivity, specificity, case-control studies, incidence rates, case fatality rates, infant mortality rates)

    • Public policy and health policy--how these are formulated and what major issues are currently under consideration

    • Specific public health problems

      • Violence Accident prevention

      • Child abuse/sexual abuse

      • infectious disease

      • Teen pregnancy

      • Infant mortality

      • Homelessness

      • Substance abuse, addiction, including alcohol and smoking

      • Environmental issues

      • Migrant worker health

    • Issues related to health promotion and disease prevention and early entry into health care

      • Economic

      • Social/educational

      • Ethnic/cultural

      • Personal

      • Legal

    • Prevention

      • Community oriented primary care

      • Chemical, immunological, and environmental approaches (e.g., immunization, fluoridation, iodination of salt)

      • Behavioral (e.g., interventions designed to enhance community health, role of physicians in advocacy, educational efforts to effect behavioral change, impact of religion and morality on health beliefs)

      • Political and regulatory interventions designed to enhance community health (e.g., labeling requirements, handgun control, food and drug, occupational safety and health, clean air and water