Primary Health Care: Open Access

Disease prevention is a procedure through which individuals, particularly those with risk factors for a disease, are treated in order to prevent a disease from occurring. Treatment normally begins either before signs and symptoms of the disease occur, or shortly thereafter. Treatment can include patient education, lifestyle modification, and drugs. Disease prevention, understood as specific, population-based and individual-based interventions for primary and secondary (early detection) prevention, aiming to minimize the burden of diseases and associated risk factors. Primary prevention refers to actions aimed at avoiding the manifestation of a disease (this may include actions to improve health through changing the impact of social and economic determinants on health; the provision of information on behavioral and medical health risks, alongside consultation and measures to decrease them at the personal and community level; nutritional and food supplementation; oral and dental hygiene education; and clinical preventive services such as immunization and vaccination of children, adults and the elderly, as well as vaccination or post-exposure prophylaxis for people exposed to a communicable disease). Secondary prevention deals with early detection when this improves the chances for positive health outcomes (this comprises activities such as evidence-based screening programs for early detection of diseases or for prevention of congenital malformations; and preventive drug therapies of proven effectiveness when administered at an early stage of the disease).