Levels of prevention and population-appropriate screening

What it is

Prevention is named at more than one level. Primary prevention acts on the source of the harm before disease has occurred, and the lead example carries the point: the most reliable and cost-effective way to protect children from lead toxicity is primary prevention, which means reducing or eliminating the sources of lead in the community. Measures that come later do less. Checking serum lead levels after exposures, anticipatory guidance about hand washing or dust control, iron and calcium supplementation, and providing cleaning equipment have been shown to have little or no effect, or else they address high lead levels only after the lead poisoning has already occurred. Secondary prevention is named alongside primary where one treatment serves both, since statins are useful for the primary and for the secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease, with the greater benefit where the baseline risk is greater.