Preventive Healthcare Services

Preventive healthcare services such as regular checkups, screenings, and counseling are the measures taken to prevent or detect illness rather than treat an existing acute or chronic disease.

Preventive care services include:

Adult screening for blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes.

Cancer screening like colonoscopies and mammograms.

Counseling on nutrition, mental health, and use of tobacco and alcohol.

Immunization and vaccination programs.

Regular screening and vaccination of pregnant women.

Pediatric screenings for hearing, vision, and developmental disorders.

There are four levels of prevention— primordial, primary, secondary, and tertiary.

The primordial level involves identifying future hazards to health and controlling the risk factors, for example, exercising regularly to prevent obesity.

The primary level involves reducing the risk factors contributing to chronic illness, such as quitting smoking to prevent lung cancer.

The secondary level involves identifying and treating pre-clinical changes, for example, screening for cholesterol if the patient is gaining weight abruptly.

The tertiary level involves delaying, reversing, or arresting the disease, for example, undergoing colectomy to prevent the further spread of colon cancer.