Immunizing an infant is an example of primary prevention, which aims to prevent health problems. Administering digoxin to treat heart failure and obtaining a smear for a screening test are examples for secondary prevention, which promotes early detection and treatment of disease. Using occupational therapy to help a patient cope with arthritis is an example of tertiary prevention, which aims to help a patient deal with the residual consequences of a problem or to prevent the problem from recurring.
Hello there,
Primary prevention is concerned with preventing the onset of disease; it aims to reduce the incidence of disease. It involves interventions that are applied before there is any evidence of disease or injury ie at the pre-pathogenesis stage. Some examples are health education and counseling, specific protection like vaccination and smoking cessation, preserving good nutritional status, physical fitness, or fluoridation of the water supply as a way to prevent dental caries.
Hope this helps.
Regards
Sudeep
primary prevention is done in the absence of disease. Secondary prevention is following treatment to mitigate the chances of disease exacerbation -- if someone maintains their blood glucose level, assuming they have diabetes, they are lesslikely to have an imputation, or become blind -- a state that is not reversible, tertiary prevention is about trying to provide further damage and keeping patient comfortable -- at all levels the patient should know all their choices -- so they can. with the provider, engage in shared-decision makig
The two main field of primary prevention are: 1. Individual, related to specific prevention, such as immunization and, 2. Collectively, related to populational prevention, such as the WHO framework convention on tobacco control, this means, public health policies.
Other examples are, nutritional policies, physical exercise policies, environmental control policies, and so on.
I noted Daniel Ortega gave an excellent list of primary preventions listed above. Rather than repeating, I thought I'd remind you of the definitions in hopes of clarifying the issue for when planning primary, secondary and tertiary interventions.
A primary preventions focus is to attempt to prevent the occurrence of a disease. A secondary prevention attempts to mitigate the impact of the disease once it has occurred. A tertiary prevention tries to minimize the ongoing effects of the disease.
Primary interventions are not about disease prevention. They are rather about health promotion which is not necessarily the oppositive of disease prvention. Primary interventions focuses about whats' create health rather than diseases.
I find the range of responses to this question very interesting as they reveal the diversity of experience and understanding of terms which are fundamental to the health field. In my experience, I've found that a practical way to understand the conceptual differences combines several of the observations made by other commentators is as follows. Primary prevention is seen to encompass two strategies: Health Enhancement (very much related to the comment by Mathieu Roy on health promotion) and Risk Avoidance - initiatives with the goal of preventing people from adopting modifiable risk (very often in the form of behaviours). Secondary prevention encompasses another two strategies: Risk Reduction (where the goal is to modify risk status to "low" or "no" risk among those for whom associated negative health consequences have yet to occur), and Early Intervention (intervening as early as possible after the onset of associated health consequences, where success rates are often higher). Finally, tertiary prevention encompasses Treatment (halting the progress of a particular health consequence and, to the extent addressing the underlying causes), and Rehabilitation (restoring health to the extent possible). Although no set of definitions will be universally acceptable, I find these enjoy widespread support. Of course, they beg a definition of "Health" which, in my experience, is a topic for almost endless opinion.
All the best,
Rob
Here is a citation on a short little article which might help clarify things for you:
Institute for Work & Health. (n.d.). Retrieved May 10, 2017, from https://www.iwh.on.ca/wrmb/primary-secondary-and-tertiary-prevention
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