Levels
Preventive medicine strategies are typically described as taking place at the primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary prevention levels. In addition, the term primal prevention has been used to describe all measures taken to ensure fetal well-being and prevent any long-term health consequences from gestational history and/or disease. The rationale for such efforts is the evidence demonstrating the link between fetal well-being, or "primal health," and adult health. Primal prevention strategies typically focus on providing future parents with: education regarding the consequences of epigenetic influences on their child, sufficient leave time for both parents, and financial support if required. This includes parenting in infancy as well.
Simple examples of preventive medicine include hand washing, breastfeeding, and immunizations. Preventive care may include examinations and screening tests tailored to an individual's age, health, and family history. For example, a person with a family history of certain cancers or other diseases would begin screening at an earlier age and/or more frequently than those with no such family history. On the other side of preventive medicine, some nonprofit organizations, such as the Northern California Cancer Center, apply epidemiologic research towards finding ways to prevent diseases.
| Prevention levels | Doctor’s side | |||
| Disease | ||||
| absent | present | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patient’s side |
Illness | absent | Primary prevention illness absent disease absent |
Secondary prevention illness absent disease present |
| present | Quaternary prevention illness present disease absent |
Tertiary prevention illness present disease present |
||
Read more about this topic: Preventive Medicine
Famous quotes containing the word levels:
“The word which gives the key to the national vice is waste. And people who are wasteful are not wise, neither can they remain young and vigorous. In order to transmute energy to higher and more subtle levels one must first conserve it.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“Pushkin’s composition is first of all and above all a phenomenon of style, and it is from this flowered rim that I have surveyed its seep of Arcadian country, the serpentine gleam of its imported brooks, the miniature blizzards imprisoned in round crystal, and the many-hued levels of literary parody blending in the melting distance.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“The country is fed up with children and their problems. For the first time in history, the differences in outlook between people raising children and those who are not are beginning to assume some political significance. This difference is already a part of the conflicts in local school politics. It may spread to other levels of government. Society has less time for the concerns of those who raise the young or try to teach them.”
—Joseph Featherstone (20th century)