Table 1 Matrix of population-level preventative public health interventions
Prevention type | Primary prevention | Secondary prevention | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Type of intervention | Fiscal measures | Regulation | Education, communication and information | Preventative treatment | Screening | |
Description | Using market forces to change demand for products deemed healthy/unhealthy | Making and enforcing regulation to encourage/discourage products and services deemed healthy/unhealthy | Using mass media campaigns to encourage/discourage products and services deemed healthy/unhealthy | Offering population-wide measures to eradicate infectious diseases | Offering age-appropriate population-level screening for certain diseases | |
Domains | Scope of domains | |||||
Tobacco | Protecting people from second-hand smoke and raising tobacco prices through taxation | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Alcohol | Increasing the price limits of alcohol and availability and bans on advertising | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Food and nutrition | Regulating supplements of trace minerals (e.g. iodine and fluoride) and tackling nutrition-related risk factors of cardiovascular diseases | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Reproductive health services | Fertility (access to contraception and safe abortion, prevention of multiple births in assisted reproduction), pregnancy (protection of pregnant women and children, preventive care in the prenatal period, screening for congenital anomalies), delivery and postpartum care (access to safe delivery care, promotion of breastfeeding) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
The control of infectious diseases | Protecting the health of the public from new or persisting threats, securing what has been achieved (e.g. system breakdown during economic crises or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Screening | Cancer screening (cervical, breast, colorectal and prostate screening, etc.) and screening for CVD risk factors (e.g. hypertension prevention and control) | ✓ | ✓ | |||
Mental health | The human rights perspective, scope of mental health policy, intervening with those at risk, intervening with the process of suicide | ✓ | ✓ | |||
Road traffic injuries | Controlling speed, stopping driving when under the influence of alcohol, enforcing use of safety equipment, increasing conspicuousness, improving vehicle crash protection, making infrastructural changes to road design | ✓ | ✓ | |||
Air, land and water pollution | Effectiveness of air pollution control policies (sulphur dioxide, particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, ozone). Land and water pollution control policies such as land decontamination | ✓ | ✓ | |||
Workplace regulations | Working week regulations, workplace health and safety legislation (e.g. around exposures to noise and vibrations) | ✓ | ✓ | |||