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Prevention may be divided into primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention.
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Prevention can be an abstract concept: it is therefore useful to consider concepts from the medical social sciences when practicing prevention.
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The “Prevention Paradox” describes that although high-risk individuals are more likely to experience a given outcome, most cases come from the broader population.
Pediatric Prevention: General Prevention
Section snippets
Key points
Then came the fifth and final triumph—the prevention of disease.
—William Osler1
The concept of prevention in medicine
Primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention
The standard framework by which to view preventive activities is through primary,2 secondary,3 and tertiary4 prevention. In particular,
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Primary prevention describes efforts to stop disease from occurring in individuals who have no history, and no current signs or symptoms, of the disease one is attempting to prevent. Importantly, primary prevention attempts to mitigate the risks of developing a disease before it develops. Examples include vaccination of uninfected individuals, lead abatement in
Applying prevention in practice
Several considerations should come into play when considering theprimary-secondary-tertiary (PST) Prevention framing. Perhaps first, and most obviously, once one is considering where a strategy falls along the prevention continuum, it becomes apparent that disease must be considered along a spectrum of progression, as opposed to a binary “sick/not sick” status. The practical ramification of this point is that there is always something that can be done to prevent progression to a next (and
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful for comments on a draft version of this article provided by Martha Wojtowycz, PhD.
Disclosure
The authors have nothing to disclose.
References (11)
Chapter VI - the rise of preventive medicine
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The illness narratives: suffering, healing, and the human condition
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