Health_and_Disease

The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is the descendant of a succession of events dating back to the early seventeenth century The London Bills of Mortality was established early in seventeenth century, originally listing the numbers of burials. By early in the eighteenth century additional information had been added to include some causes of death. ICD-10 was endorsed by the Forty-third World Health Assembly in May 1990 and came into use in WHO Member States as from 1994 The classification is the latest in the series. The first edition, known as the International List of Causes of Death, was adopted by the International Statistical Institute in 1893. The World Health Organisation took over the responsibility for the ICD in 1948 when the Sixth Revision, which included causes of morbidity for the first time, was published. The International Classification of diseases is a structured classification of diseases with related codes, its purpose is to allow morbidity and mortality data to be systematically collected from different countries and statistically analysed. The ICD is published by the WHO every 10 years and is currently in its tenth edition The ICD is the worldwide standard diagnostic classification for epidemiological, health management purposes and clinical use. They include the analysis of the general health position of population groups and the monitoring the frequency and prevalence of diseases and other health problems. The number of categories in ICD has grown, in response to the increasing diverseness of uses to which it has been put mortality, morbidity, hospital indexing and statistics, reimbursement, public policy. It has become a multi-purpose classification. The ICD is used to classify diseases and other health problems registered on many kinds of health and vital records including death certificates and health records. In the latest version of the standard classification used in public health, the ICD's universe has become even broader, and the title of the tenth revision (1992) included related health problems. The ICD also includes a section that classifies mental and behaviour conditions. This has been developed alongside the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders( DSM) the two manuals seek to use the same codes. However there are considerable differences, such as the ICD including personality disorders on the same axis as other mental disorders, unlike the DSM. The ICD uses as its core a single list of three alphanumerical character codes A00 to Z99, excluding U as it is reserved for research and provisional assignment. The classification is structured in 21 chapters. The 1st character of the code is a letter associated with a specific chapter. Within the chapters, the three character codes are divided into blocks that reflect different axes of classification. The ICD – 10 is presented in three volumes: Volume 1 - Tabular list, Contains the classification itself at the three and four character levels. The classification of the biology of neoplasms, special tabulation for mortality and morbidity, definitions and the nomenclature regulations. Volume 2 – Instruction Manual, guidance on the use of volume one Volume 3 - The Alphabetical Index . Index with instructions on its use The control of an infectious disease relies upon a well defined network of Nurses, Doctors, Epidemiologists and infection control personnel who supply epidemiological information to a network of national and international organisations. These individuals and organisations comprise the public health system and share their findings with the centres for Disease control and prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organisation There are two terms used to describe a classification; “ universe” and “axis”. The universe is the totality of the the objects that are to be classified, for example; all diseases, all causes of death, all people in a given population, all reasons people encounter the heath system etc. An axis is an attribute shared by members of the universe, there are many axes, such as causes of illness, ages of patients, disorders produced, reasons for encounters, and so on. Every classification has basic attributes, It deals with a characterized universe. It groups the objects, using as few groups as in accordant with its purpose. in public health and epidemiology, classifications are designed primarily for the collection of statistics. The ICD is unbiased evidence obtained from population studies. Each classification is designed for a specific purpose, which determines its scheme of organisation. It must accommodate all the objects in its universe and as a result of this has one or more categories worded “other”. One application of classification methods is to give perspective to the range of diseases and the diversity of their nature. There are two important and fundamental concepts in classification, cause and risk; A cause is an external agent ( microbe, chemical substance, physical trauma) which results in disease in susceptible individuals. A determinant is an attribute or circumstance that effects the liability of an individual to be exposed to or, when exposed, to develop disease, e.g. environmental conditions. Certain diseases are caused by infectious agents, one chapter in the classification uses” infectious agents” as the organizing axis, other chapters use physiological systems as their organizing axes,” respiratory and circulatory.” This is where conflict rises, for example because a disease such as bacterial pneumonia is both infectious and respiratory. Disease classification arranges organisms into groups whose members share many characteristics and reflects as much as possible the biological nature of the disease. For example; Chapter 1 A00-B99 Certain infectious and parasitic diseases, contains an enormous amount of information on the range and diversity of all diseases in that category. A00 – A09 intestinal infectious diseases Ranging from For example; A00 Cholera due to Vibrio cholerae 01, biovar cholerae Classical Cholera A00.1 Cholera due to vibrio cholerae 01, biovar eltor Cholera eltor A00.9 Cholera unspecified Through to; A09 Diarrhoea and gastroenteritis of presumed infectious origin. The problem of prevention of chronic diseases centre around their natural history, the difficulty in identifying aetiological agents and the fact that many have multiple causes. Furthermore, the latent period between exposure to the aetiological agent and the appearance of symptoms. Huge difficulties arise in the diagnosing one disease especially when there are four or five symptoms presenting. For example, The symptoms of swine flu is similar to that of regular human seasonal influenza infection and include: fever->38 C, lethargy, lack of appetite , cough, headache, fatigue, running nose, sore throat and diarrhoea. A clinician may fail to appreciate the the range of different ways that diseases present and progress and so must rely on his or her personal experience to diagnose and assess the situation in individual cases.