Developing a strategy for preventative health: a framework

Much of the ill-health and disease burden facing Australians today and into the foreseeable future is preventable. An effective preventative health strategy thus offers the prospect of improving the health of the community. This is both of direct benefit and indirect benefit via a possible impact on workforce participation/productivity and a reduction in need for health care. Prevention can be categorised as; i) Primary prevention, by preventing the adoption of harmful behaviours (such as smoking), preventing development of clinical risk factors such as high blood pressure, or preventing disease in those already ‘at risk’; ii) Secondary prevention to prevent/delay complications in persons with disease (newly diagnosed/established), iii)Tertiary prevention to prevent/delay complications in those with established disease and morbid consequences, and distinguished from consequential activities that reflect a failure of prevention.