IELTS health vocabulary

Health appears in IELTS in many forms: the rise of obesity, the cost of public healthcare, the pressure of modern life on mental health, and the challenge of an ageing population. Writing Task 2 often asks you to suggest causes and solutions, while Speaking questions may ask how you stay healthy or whether people today are fitter than in the past.

This deck gives you the vocabulary to describe illness, treatment and prevention clearly. For illness, learn disease, illness, symptom, infection, virus and chronic (lasting a long time, as in chronic pain). For care, you have diagnosis, treatment, therapy, surgery and prescription, together with the people involved: patient, physician and nurse. Public health discussions call for vaccination, epidemic, pandemic, immune and prevention, the idea that stopping a problem early is cheaper than curing it later.

Lifestyle essays are very common, so make sure you can use diet, nutrition, calorie, exercise and fitness accurately. Remember that "diet" in English usually means the food you normally eat, not only a plan to lose weight. For mental wellbeing, stress, anxiety and depression are useful, but use them carefully: they are serious conditions, and examiners appreciate a balanced, respectful tone. Addiction covers smoking, alcohol and gambling-like habits such as excessive phone use.

Population questions need life expectancy, ageing and elderly. A typical sentence might be: "As life expectancy rises, governments must spend more on care for elderly citizens." Notice that expectancy rarely appears without "life", and that "the elderly" is a common noun phrase in formal writing.