Level of Prevention

In the modern day, prevention is a concept with broad appeal. It has been customary to divide prevention into these four categories:

• Primordial prevention
• Primary prevention
• Secondary prevention
• Tertiary prevention

Primordial Prevention

This has to do with stopping risk factors from sprouting or developing among particular population groups when they have not yet shown themselves. These techniques must be used in particular for the prevention of chronic diseases. For instance, altering a child's lifestyle in his or her formative years can prevent obesity in adulthood. It is beneficial to take any steps that will help prospective parents give their unborn child the attention they require and the secure physical and emotional environments they need from conception until the child turns one (during the infant's early years). Strategies to prevent risk factors from arising early in life are referred to as primordial prevention.

Recently, the concept of "health promotion" as a separate category was put out. This paradigm of health promotion is based on "new understanding" in molecular biology, including information on epigenetics, which emphasizes how both the physical and emotional surroundings experienced during fetal and newborn life can influence every aspect of adult health. This innovative strategy for promoting health is called primal prevention. In essence, it means aiding expectant parents while their child is still in the primordial stage of development and giving them important, unbiased information regarding primal health. This calls for granting sufficient parental leave, ideally for both parents, as well as any required financial aid and family care.

The aim of primordial prevention is to prevent children from engaging in unhealthy behaviors. For example, because habits are formed in childhood, many adult health issues (such as obesity and hypertension) have their earliest roots there (for example, smoking, eating patterns, and physical activity). The main method of primordial prevention is individual and group education.

Primary Prevention

The term "primary prevention" refers to actions taken to prevent diseases from ever manifesting, as well as those taken during the pre-pathogenesis stage of a disease or other health problems. Effective chronic illness prevention strategies include the elimination of risk factors for diseases or their adjustment. Depending on the situation, either population-based or at the individual level. While prevention at the individual level refers to improving living conditions and quality of life, for instance, by enhancing environmental health, providing safe drinking water, and providing decent housing through mass communication and health education. In addition to immunization programs, population-based prevention emphasizes socioeconomic, behavioral, and lifestyle factors.

Primary prevention includes holistic prevention. It is reliant on laws designed to promote health, provide protection from specific disease agents, and lessen environmental hazards. These regulations are more cost-effective and cover a greater population. methods for preventing disease, either by getting rid of disease agents or increasing resistance to disease. Examples include becoming immunized against diseases, maintaining a healthy diet and exercise regimen, and giving up smoking. The two traditional approaches to primary prevention are "health promotion" and "specific protection." The modern, non-clinical lifestyle choices that enhance health.

The WHO has recommended the following tactics for the primary prevention of chronic diseases where the risk factors are known:

• High-risk strategy
• Population strategy

Secondary Prevention

It is described as "Activity which inhibits a disease's progression in its early stages and prevents complication." The particular interventions include:

• Early detection (e.g. screening tests, and case finding programs).
• Adequate medical care.

These are preventative measures, such as early diagnosis and timely treatment, that stop a disease in its tracks and protect against consequences. Being focused on stopping the spread of disease, early diagnosis and treatment of the ill individual may act as both primary and secondary prevention for other community members as well as the infected person. This level of preventive treatment is under the purview of clinical medicine. The majority of government efforts target this level. The patient has already felt physical and mental strain and lost productivity, which is the level's main drawback. methods for spotting diseases and treating them before symptoms appear. The treatment of hypertension, which is a risk factor for many cardiovascular diseases, and cancer screenings are two examples. Secondary prevention aims to prevent an asymptomatic condition from manifesting symptoms by concentrating on latent disorders. Primary and secondary diseases come in two different varieties. Primary prevention may or may not treat the underlying cause of an illness or injury, depending on how a condition is characterized. The objectives of secondary prevention are early disease detection and treatment. Secondary prevention entails "early diagnosis and prompt treatment," as well as "disability limitation to stop any potential future complications and disabilities from the disease," in order to contain the illness and prevent it from spreading to other people. Early diagnosis and prompt treatment for syphilis patients can include a course of antibiotics to eradicate the pathogen as well as screening and treatment for any children born to syphilitic mothers. Syphilitic patients need to have regular checks on their heart, cerebrospinal fluid, and central nervous system to prevent harmful side effects like blindness or paralysis.

• Early Diagnosis and Treatment

The WHO Expert Committee defined early detection of health problems as "the detection of disturbance of homoeostatic and compensatory biochemical system while biochemical, morphological, and functional abnormalities are still reversible" in 1973. The earlier the disease is discovered and treated, the better the case's prognosis and the likelihood that additional secondary cases won't develop.

Tertiary Prevention

Any possible means to diminish suffering imposed on by current health lapses, lessen or restrict impairment, or restrict disability. The intention is to reduce the incidence of chronic incapacity or recurrences in a society and, as a result, reduce the functional impacts of a disease. This has to do with the care provided, such as therapy, various forms of rehabilitation, and interventions designed to aid the patient in returning to their regular lives in terms of learning, family, work, social interactions, and cultural pursuits. This level of preventive goes beyond the idea of prevention to encompass the rehabilitative aspect of healthcare. It represents intervention in the late stages of disease pathogenesis. strategies for reducing the impacts of symptomatic disease, such as mortality or disability, through treatment and rehabilitation. Examples include medical procedures that halt disease development or transmission. Tertiary prevention, which aims to decrease the harm caused by symptomatic disease, focuses on mental, physical, and social rehabilitation. In contrast to secondary prevention, which aims to prevent incapacity, tertiary prevention aims to maximize a patient's remaining abilities and functions.

Tertiary prevention aims to stop disease progression and its effects, avoid suffering and harm, and restore health and function to those who have already been harmed by the disease. For syphilitic patients, rehabilitation entails taking preventative measures against the disease's total disability, such as creating workplace adaptations for the blind and paralyzed or providing counseling to help patients resume daily activities as much as is practical.

When the condition has advanced past the first stages, it is used. "All practical techniques to decrease or restrict impairments and disabilities and to facilitate the patients' adjustment to irreversible conditions" are how it is defined.

At the tertiary preventative stage, it is important to address all disabilities, restrictions, and rehabilitation.

• Disease
• Impairment
• Disability
• Handicap
  • Impairment
    • Any change or aberration in a person's physiology, anatomy, or psychological makeup.
  • Disability
    • Is "any restriction or inability to perform a function in a manner deemed to be within the range of normal for the human being"
  • Handicap
    • According to the definition, it is "disadvantage for a specific individual, resulting from an impairment or disability, which restricts or prevents the fulfilment of a role in the community, that is normal (depending on age, sex, and cultural factors) for that individual."
  • Disease
    • Disease is any harmful deviation from an organism's normal structural or functional state that is typically accompanied by specific signs and symptoms and is different from physical injury in nature.