• Question: Why isn’t there more focus on preventing illness then treating it?

    Asked by 655genk38 to Ali on 8 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Ali Blatcher

      Ali Blatcher answered on 8 Nov 2017:

      Hi

      Very good question. At medical school we learn about public health which is about studies and determinants of disease, such as smoking or alcohol abuse, which focuses on prevention rather than cure.

      I think I will be applying to public health as my specialty because this is a topic I feel passionate about.

      Ali

Comments

  • Photo: Adrian

    Adrian commented on :

    Probably financial as they have been cutting the public health budgets for years, whilst in the long run prevention is better than cure its hard to show results and when there is not enough money to treat the presently ill its hard to get governments to put money into prevention and future possible savings. But take smoking, were we have seen massive campaigns regarding stopping and to be honest not much reduction, the biggest impact on smoking in recent years has been stopping people smoking in the workplace and pubs, and the use of vapes (though who knows what effect these may have on the body later in life).

  • Photo: Kit

    Kit commented on :

    This is a topic lots of people find frustrating! It would make much more financial and common sense to stop diseases happening rather than try and manage them later. As Adrian says a lot of this comes down to funding and having the resources to put proper programmes in place. It also takes time – for instance improvements in survival of pregnant women and babies over the last 100 years has been down to prevention of disease and better living conditions, which doesn’t happen quickly. It can also be slow to get a large population to engage with health promotion, as with the case of quitting smoking.