Preventative Healthcare

Preventative health care seeks to minimize the effects chronic diseases have on people. Chronic diseases are the leading cause of death and disability worldwide. They tax the health care system and interfere with patients’ quality of life. 

Preventative health care focuses on preventative services and screening tests.

Preventative health care services seek to keep chronic disease from developing in the first place. Services often include recommendations on how to change your lifestyle behaviors to promote better health. 

For example, your provider may recommend you adopt a healthier diet and quit smoking to reduce your risk of developing heart disease. 

Preventative health care services also include vaccinations, which include the annual flu vaccines for anyone six months or older and childhood immunizations for diseases such as  polio and meningitis. 

Preventative health care screenings help identify any health problems early when these conditions are easiest to treat. Screenings can also determine if you’re at greater risk of a certain condition and would benefit from health care services to prevent the full-blown development of disease. 

For example, preventative glucose screenings can identify elevated blood sugar levels before you develop diabetes. Often, lifestyle changes can reverse these levels, so you never have to manage the condition.

Preventative health care screenings include blood work, diagnostic imaging, and lab testing. Mammograms for women older than 40 and colonoscopies for patients in their late 40s and 50s are examples of preventative screenings. 

Preventative health care can address different stages of your health. The most basic, or primary, level of prevention is an approach that addresses your behaviors and lifestyle to maintain a healthy state.

Secondary prevention involves the screenings that identify health changes and any treatments that can prevent long-term complications. This could include a colonoscopy and removal of any precancerous polyps. 

Tertiary prevention focuses on reversing or delaying the effects of chronic disease. For example, if you have diabetes, tertiary prevention involves you coming in for regular glucose and A1C3 monitoring to make sure your condition isn’t worsening.