Cure Is Better Than Prevention
Promotion of healthy lifestyles and the prevention of ill health is a fundamental principle behind public health and improving the public’s health. The phrase ‘prevention is better than cure’ is often attributed to the Dutch philosopher Desiderius Erasmus in around 1500.
It is now a fundamental principle of modern health care and inherent within health and social care strategies across the UK (See: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales ). Prevention is about tackling the upstream causes of ill health, this in itself is not controversial. The challenge is how it is paid for.
See: King’s Fund – Prevention is better than cure, except when it comes to paying for it, The results are not easily measured, because it is not easy to see where illness has not occurred. The UK has a rich history of focusing on prevention, from Edward Jenner’s smallpox vaccine in 1796 to John Snow using data analytics to determine the cause of the cholera outbreak in 1854.
While there has been huge progress across many public health trends, life expectancy in the UK has stalled and in some parts of the UK, has even decreased. There are worrying trends in health inequalities, with an unprecedented reversal in life expectancy for some groups and stark inequalities between healthy life expectancy between the most and least deprived areas.
Increasing rates of alcohol and drugs-related deaths and hospitalisations, STIs, and obesity and a shift in the pattern of ill health towards multiple health conditions are also indicative of the need for action. Nursing is essentially about providing quality evidence-based care and support to individuals and populations to improve health and well-being throughout life.
In the past, public health has been seen as a niche specialty far removed from the typical image of nursing and only practiced by those with very specific qualifications. Nursing and midwifery staff are now increasingly recognised as instrumental in improving and supporting the public’s health at an individual, community and population level.
All nursing and midwifery staff are well placed to do this and need to embrace the contribution they can make to prevention. The ongoing challenge is having enough staff with the skills and time to make this essential contribution. The RCN have been campaigning for many years for a greater focus on prevention with adequate funding.
This is particularly pertinent in England, following the transfer of funding for public health to local authorities in 2013 and thereafter significant year on year cuts to local authority budgets and to the public health grant. The RCN welcomed the announcement in the recent 2019 spending review of a real terms increase to the public health grant, which we see as a step in the right direction.
However, indications are that the increase will likely fall short of the amount needed to offset the years of cuts and is not based on an assessment of population need. Improving public health and preventing ill health is about more than health services; and requires action to address the wider determinants of health, for example, education, transport and employment, which need to be addressed alongside health services in a more systematic way and with cross-government action and investment.
- The RCN’s commitment is for a properly funded cross-government prevention strategy with a nursing workforce who are able to deliver this.
- We are calling for a long term sustainable investment in public health and prevention, which is based on assessment of population need and an understanding of health inequalities.
The RCN has key alliances with a number of organisations to support lobbying on public health. For example we are members of the Alcohol Health Alliance who have recently called for £1 billion spent in tax to alcohol industry to be spent on funding 40,000 nurse vacancies.
Contents
Why cure is better than prevention?
Prevention and Cure – “Prevention” and “Cure” both are two separate words and also carry different meanings. Prevention means following various measures, which will lower the risk of getting any kind of ailment in the first place, while the cure is done only once you get a certain ailment to get rid of the ailment.
However, prevention is considered better in many aspects, rather than the cure via medicines or other medical procedures. Prevention is said to be the best available way to remain away from any kind of problem or disease. A person just needs to maintain a well-disciplined and healthy lifestyle throughout their life, while a careless and unhealthy life might lead to certain issues, which requires cure using medical science.
There are also some ailments, cure to which is still not available like HIV AIDS, preventive methods is the only way to protect ourselves from such diseases.
What is better prevention or cure?
This page is about the saying “Prevention is better than cure” Possible meaning: It’s better to take care that a problem does not happen than to have to solve the problem afterwards. It’s easier to stop something bad from happening in the first place than to fix the damage after it has happened.
What is the quote from Chasing My cure?
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Find & Share Quotes with Friends Sign in with Facebook Sign in options Join Goodreads Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars Chasing My Cure: A Doctor’s Race to Turn Hope into Action by David Fajgenbaum 1,940 ratings, 4.21 average rating, 284 reviews Chasing My Cure Quotes Showing 1-1 of 1 “hope cannot be a passive concept. It’s a choice and a force; hoping for something takes more than casting out a wish to the universe and waiting for it to occur.
Is it possible to prevent diseases?
How You Can Prevent Chronic Diseases Many chronic diseases are caused by key, By making healthy choices, you can reduce your likelihood of getting a and improve your quality of life. Stopping smoking (or never starting) lowers the risk of serious health problems, such as heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, and lung disease, as well as premature death—even for longtime smokers. Take the first step and call 1-800-QUIT-NOW for FREE support. Over time, excessive drinking can lead to high blood pressure, various cancers, heart disease, stroke, and liver disease. By not drinking too much, you can reduce these health risks. Oral diseases—which range from cavities and gum disease to oral cancer—cause pain and disability for millions of Americans. To help prevent these problems, drink fluoridated water, brush with fluoride toothpaste twice a day, and floss daily. Visit your dentist at least once a year, even if you have no natural teeth or have dentures. Insufficient sleep has been linked to the development and poor management of diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and depression. Adults should get at least 7 hours of sleep daily. By making healthy behaviors part of your daily life, you can prevent conditions such as high blood pressure or obesity, which raise your risk of developing the most common and serious chronic diseases. Learn more about healthy actions you or your loved ones can take. : How You Can Prevent Chronic Diseases
What are the 4 steps of prevention?
Definition/Introduction – The natural history of a disease classifies into five stages: underlying, susceptible, subclinical, clinical, and recovery/disability/death. Corresponding preventive health measures have been grouped into similar stages to target the prevention of these stages of a disease.
- These preventive stages are primordial prevention, primary prevention, secondary prevention, and tertiary prevention.
- Combined, these strategies not only aim to prevent the onset of disease through risk reduction, but also downstream complications of a manifested disease.
- Primordial Prevention: In 1978, the most recent addition to preventive strategies, primordial prevention, was described.
It consists of risk factor reduction targeted towards an entire population through a focus on social and environmental conditions. Such measures typically get promoted through laws and national policy. Because primordial prevention is the earliest prevention modality, it is often aimed at children to decrease as much risk exposure as possible.
Primordial prevention targets the underlying stage of natural disease by targeting the underlying social conditions that promote disease onset. An example includes improving access to an urban neighborhood to safe sidewalks to promote physical activity; this, in turn, decreases risk factors for obesity, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, etc.
Primary Prevention: Primary prevention consists of measures aimed at a susceptible population or individual. The purpose of primary prevention is to prevent a disease from ever occurring. Thus, its target population is healthy individuals. It commonly institutes activities that limit risk exposure or increase the immunity of individuals at risk to prevent a disease from progressing in a susceptible individual to subclinical disease.
For example, immunizations are a form of primary prevention. Secondary Prevention: Secondary prevention emphasizes early disease detection, and its target is healthy-appearing individuals with subclinical forms of the disease. The subclinical disease consists of pathologic changes, but no overt symptoms that are diagnosable in a doctor’s visit.
Secondary prevention often occurs in the form of screenings. For example, a Papanicolaou (Pap) smear is a form of secondary prevention aimed to diagnose cervical cancer in its subclinical state before progression. Tertiary Prevention: Tertiary prevention targets both the clinical and outcome stages of a disease.
It is implemented in symptomatic patients and aims to reduce the severity of the disease as well as of any associated sequelae. While secondary prevention seeks to prevent the onset of illness, tertiary prevention aims to reduce the effects of the disease once established in an individual. Forms of tertiary prevention are commonly rehabilitation efforts.
Quaternary Prevention: According to the Wonca International Dictionary for General/Family Practice, Quaternary prevention is: “action taken to identify patients at risk of overmedicalization, to protect him from new medical invasion, and to suggest to him interventions, which are ethically acceptable.” Marc Jamoulle initially proposed this concept, and the targets were mainly patients with illness but without the disease.
Are vaccines primary prevention?
Table: Three Levels of Prevention – Merck Manuals Consumer Version The three levels of prevention are primary, secondary, and tertiary. In primary prevention, a disorder is actually prevented from developing. Types of primary prevention include the following:
Counseling to change high-risk behavior Sometimes chemoprevention
In secondary prevention, disease is detected and treated early, often before symptoms are present, thus minimizing serious consequences. Types of secondary prevention include the following:
Screening programs, such as mammography to detect breast cancer and dual x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) to detect osteoporosis. Tracking down the sex partners of a person diagnosed with a sexually transmitted infection (contact tracing) and, if necessary, treating these people to minimize spread of the disease.
In tertiary prevention, an existing, usually chronic disease is managed to prevent complications or further damage. Types of tertiary prevention include the following:
For people with diabetes: Control of blood sugar, excellent skin care, frequent examination of the feet, and frequent exercise to prevent heart and blood vessel disorders For people who have had a stroke: Taking aspirin to prevent a second stroke from occurring Providing supportive and rehabilitative services to prevent deterioration and maximize quality of life, such as rehabilitation from injuries, heart attack, or stroke Preventing complications in people with disabilities, such as preventing pressure sores in those confined to bed.
: Table: Three Levels of Prevention – Merck Manuals Consumer Version
What is the concept of disease prevention?
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.
