Secondary Prevention Methods

Prevention services are the corner stone of providing quality health care. They act on a series of levels that encourage prevention, detection, and ultimately treatment of disease. Although prevention methods have always been integrated in modern healthcare practices, the Affordable Care Act of 2010 introduced by the Obama Administration placed a high emphasis on preventative measures. The existing stages of prevention include primary prevention, secondary prevention, and tertiary prevention. Primary prevention services are the first efforts made to prevent a disease from occurring. Its focus revolves around identifying risk factors for certain diseases and educating the public on healthier lifestyles that may prevent the occurrence of a disease later in life. An example of this type of prevention services are smoking prevention or cessation services. The Sun City Elks Association has an exhibit that they set up at elementary schools that attempts to explain the dangers of smoking both to young students and their parents. They have graphic pictures of smoker’s lungs verses the lungs of a nonsmoking individual. They also have

By identifying the beginning of a disease, the likelihood of a good outcome greatly increases. Some examples of this preventative method include routine screenings by a medical professional such as colonoscopies, mammograms, and blood pressure monitoring. The Anthony Bates Foundation creates a productive harmony between primary and secondary prevention methods. It was founded after Anthony Bates unfortunately passed away due to an undiagnosed heart abnormality. They combined the educational measures that are present in primary prevention with the early detection of secondary prevention by running cardiac screenings in high schools in an attempt to diagnose any undetected heart