1. Infectious and Non-Infectious Diseases
Grade 7 Health

2. What is the difference between an infectious and a non-infectious disease?
Infectious diseases are diseases that can be transmitted from one person to another where as a non-infectious disease can not.
Example: an infectious disease that can be spread is the influenza (flu) or HIV. An example of a non-infectious disease is diabetes or cancer.

3. Similarities between infectious & non-infectious diseases
Both infectious & non-infectious diseases can:
Affect people of any age
Can affect a person’s physical health; this means they may cause part of a person’s body not to work right
Can affect a person’s mental health
Can affect a person’s social health
Can affect people in an economic way; they may cause a person to spend money

4. How can an infectious disease spread?
Infectious diseases can spread through direct contact:
Person to person contact by touching, coughing on or kissing another infected person which causes bacteria and viruses to pass from one person to another
Animal to person contact by being scratched or bitten by an infected animal or in some cases handling infected animal waste.

5. How can infectious diseases be spread?
Infectious diseases can be spread through indirect contact:
Some bacteria and viruses can live periodically on non living items such as table tops and door knobs. If a person who is infected touches these things the bacteria and viruses can be passed to a non infected person if they touch them.
Animal Bites can transfer diseases through mosquito bites, fleas, ticks or lice
Food Contamination can cause people to become ill through contaminated water or under cooked food (ex: e-coli) and unwashed fruits and vegetables.

6. What are some infectious and non-infectious diseases?
Flu H1N1
diabetes
rabies
cancer
cold
ADHD
AIDS, HIV
Athsma
STDs
Tetanus
Chicken pox
Dyslexia
Pneumonia CP
Whooping cough
Heart conditions
Pink eye
Arthritis

7. Infectious Disease Examples
Food poisoning
Measles
Chicken Pox
Cold
Nile Virus
E.coli virus
Mononucleosis (Mono)
Warts
Influenza (flu), H1N1

8. Non-Infectious Disease Examples
Asthma
allergies
diabetes
Heart disease
cancer
arthritis
epilepsy
Multiple sclerosis
Anorexia, bulimia

9. Read and Analyze
Read the three articles (cold, flu and hand washing) and answer the following questions:
How do people catch colds? The flu?
What are the symptoms of a cold? How long can a cold last?
What are the symptoms of the flu? How long can a flu last?
What system in your body is under attack when you have a cold or the flu?
What can you do to avoid getting a cold? The flu?
How do immunizations work?

10. Non-infectious Diseases
Non-infectious diseases are not contagious. This means that you can not catch it from another person. Often times certain non-infectious diseases such as cancer, heart conditions or mental disorders can be genetic.
This means that while you can’t “catch” the illness from another person often times it seems to pass from one generation to another.

11. Signs and Symptoms
Often times when people do not feel well they will say that they have the “signs” or “symptoms” of a certain illness.
Signs and symptoms are not the same thing.
A sign is something physical that a doctor can discover in an examination. An example of a “sign” is a fever as often times fever is a sign of an infection.
For example: Otitis Media (ear infection) is a type of infection that is often accompanied by a fever that will not go away with over the counter medication such as Tylenol or Advil.

12. Signs and Symptoms
A Symptom is something that a patient feels and can not be detected by a doctor. However, when a patient experiences symptoms it is important that you tell your doctor what you are feeling as this can help them determine your illness.

13. Otitis Media (Ear Infection)

14. Living with a Disease
People who have both infectious or non-infectious diseases may have difficulty coping with day to day life.
People with diseases can have a lot of stress on themselves and in their family.
Certain diseases require a lot of medical expenses such as hospital care, medication, transportation, hotels, food, etc which may be difficult for some families to afford this care.
Some diseases do not allow people to work which can cause difficulty and stress for families to pay their bills to buy food, clothes, medicine, car payment, house payment, etc.

15. Living with a Disease
Recently many soldiers have been diagnosed with a disease called “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” which can cause them to have nightmares, violent outbursts, sleep problems among other things. These soldiers have to undergo extensive therapy to help them understand their disease and find ways to help them cope in day to day life. Unfortunately some of these soldier suffer so greatly that they never recover from the trauma they experienced which causes the health care system to spend large sums of money on treatment that both you and I are responsible to provide through taxes.

16. Assignment
Research FOUR diseases (two infectious and two non-infectious)
For each disease, find:
What is the disease ( create a definition in your OWN words)
How is it transmitted, and if not, why?
What are the 2-3 effects on the body?
What can be done to prevent or lessen the chances of getting this disease (medication, protection, habits, health choice, etc…)

17. Information on Diseases

18. Sharing your research
When it’s your turn, present ONE infectious and ONE non-infectious disease to your group.
When you are not presenting, you will need to take notes on what your group members are saying! For ONE of the diseases that is presented to you, write a short summary of what you’ve learned.
For ex: “Malaria – I learned that it is transmitted through mosquito bites. It can give you fever, chills and even kill you. It’s common in Africa and South America.”

19. Assignment
Create a color poster that shows FOUR ways to prevent infectious 0r non-infectious diseases
Underneath, write a paragraph explaining your FOUR drawings
For ex: “One way to prevent infectious diseases is to wash your hands because bacteria is transmitted through touch. Another way is to eat healthy because….”