Prevention: A good start but not the only solution

The growing prevalence of chronic disease is a complex problem that cannot be simply fixed with one solution. There are a plethora of factors and determinants that contribute to chronic disease that I think prevention is just one aspect that can help to deal with this problem. Of course, investing in prevention is a key aspect since it ultimately has the potential to decrease a person's health care costs down the line. Rather than spending the money to deal with a disease, why not prevent it in the first place. This not only prevents unnecessary drain on our limited health care resources, but it allows people to live at a higher quality of life and thus be more productive in society as opposed to be more of a burden. Although, to reap the benefits of prevention, a great deal of money must first be invested before any positive outcomes can begin to arise, which means greater health care spending upfront as opposed to down the line. This has caused prevention to be a hard sell because understandably so, people are always hesitant to put more money into something that they are not sure will have the effects that they anticipate or want. Thus, there needs to be more research done to prove the importance of preventive medicine.

In addition to prevention, I believe that reducing and ultimately eliminating health care disparities in our system will be key in decreasing the prevalence of chronic disease. The reason so many are forced to suffer with chronic conditions is because they don't have the luxury of going to a primary care provider and thus only seek medical attention only when they are already plagued with some type of problem. This is obviously not the most efficient way of handling these issues and so by allowing more people better access to more than just emergency care it should help quell this chronic disease problem.