Approaches of prevention

I think when talking about chronic disease, 'prevention' could be a very broad topic.  Individuals, health institutions and government have different role to play for the same goal of fighting chronic disease.  The Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease (PFCD) has 3 major approaches fighting chronic disease: educating the public, mobilizing health institutions and challenging policies.

Before educating people how to prevent chronic disease, it's very important to have people realize that we should prevent chronic disease.  Prevention is difficult because IF PREVENTION IS SUCCESSFUL, NOTHING HAPPENS.  And there's no way we could interfere people's daily habits too much.  But considering the fact that chronic diseases are both the most preventable and among the most common and costly health problems, prevention would always be our first issue.

What else? For those chronic conditions which already exists, there's also things we should do.  Improve access to health services and cut health care costs can make a positive change of people's attitude towards their chronic condition, since chronic disease really costs a lot among all health care expenses.

Also I found something interesting.  Maryland is one of the leading states when it comes to health research and health care, but it has one of the largest chronic disease burdens in the country: more than 3 million cases and more than $25 billion every year in combined treatment costs and lost productivity.  What I can conclude is: the education of preventing chronic disease in Maryland might be a problem since how people turn into chronic conditions has nothing to do with health care.