Chronic Disease Prevention

Although I believe prevention is the key to tackle chronic diseases in America, I also feel that we need to address other issues at the same time as well.

For example, as pointed out in 2008 report by Annals of Internal Medicine, with increasing number of U.S. working-age population with poorer access to medical care-- compounded by the association of chronic diseases-- the issue of access to health care is also one of the areas needed to be addressed as well.

Like any other health problem, without access to health, the uninsured may be more likely to skip medications, more likely to use the emergency department until in the later stages, which in turn will consume more health care resources than if they got early diagnoses and prompt treatments. Consequently, this will lead to rising health care costs.

So, I think we not only need to have good overarching long term plans to continuously monitor and evaluate chronic disease prevention strategies. At the same time, we need to address other associated conditions like access to health care as well. Otherwise, it will not be effective in containing the rising health care cost.