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Primary Prevention and the Three Levels of Health Care
What Primary Prevention is, why it is important to practice it during this crisis, and how it could solve the health care cost crisis in the U.S.
What is Primary Prevention, and why is it important in what may well be remembered as the Coronavirus Crisis of 2020?
First, although it’s not in my profile, I earned a public health degree back in the late ’90s — specifically, a degree in Health Promotion and Education. I mention this only to establish credibility for what follows. My two biggest takeaways from that two-year course of study were: (1) the importance of the idea of systems as fundamental to our understanding not just of health but of reality generally; and (2) something more health specific: what the folks at Carolina called the Three Levels of Prevention.
I am not an M.D., however, and nothing here ought to substitute for solid and specific medical advice if you believe you’ve been exposed to the coronavirus.
Having studied public health formally, it later struck me that the phrase Three Levels of Prevention was a misnomer. Once you got above the first level, it was too late to prevent illness or worse. Then one day I hit on the correct phrase: the Three Levels of Health Care.
Those wishing to take a major deep dive into systems theory as a foundation for health promotion should go here — to the refereed journal article Dr. Ureda and I were able (after a long struggle with the data-drivenness academic box) to get published. It’s not essential for what follows, though, and I link to it only for completeness’ sake.
We turn, then, to the Three Levels of Health Care:
Primary Prevention, Secondary Treatment, and Tertiary Care.
Each one sketched in a couple of sentences:
Primary Prevention is everything you can (and should) do to avoid getting sick, injured, etc. Like the phrase says, it is preventive, not curative.
Secondary Treatment is what the doctor does (one hopes!) when you’re sick and want to restore your health!
