What is Prevention?
"Prevention" in health care falls into two categories:
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Primary Prevention: These activities are intended to prevent the onset of a disease or injury using risk-reduction strategies, such as education about healthy habits, immunizations against infectious diseases and mandated safety practices.
- Secondary Prevention: These activities include procedures that can reduce the impact of a disease by detecting it as early as possible, such as regular screenings like mammograms and colonoscopies, and blood screenings for diabetes and high cholesterol.
For a comprehensive prevention strategy, it’s best to include both primary and secondary prevention awareness and education.
By increasing the use of evidence-based preventive benefits in employee populations, more preventable diseases and other health problems are caught early, before they become chronic, complex and expensive to treat.
Why Promote Prevention?
According to the CDC: 3
- Chronic diseases like heart disease, cancer and diabetes are responsible for 7 out of 10 deaths among Americans
- Treating people with these conditions accounts for 86% of the nation’s health spending each year
- These diseases are largely preventable
By increasing the use of evidence-based preventive benefits in employee populations, more preventable diseases and other health problems are caught early, before they become chronic, complex and expensive to treat. This supports the core beliefs of population health management – keeping healthy people healthy for as long as possible and managing those with chronic conditions so they are not getting worse. Comprehensive benefits consist not only of medical care when illness strikes, but also services to prevent disease in the first place.
According to the CDC, when employees embrace prevention and experience health improvement, their self-esteem, morale and job satisfaction also improve. Employers can see an economic benefit – spending less on direct medical costs – and a more engaged and productive workforce. 1