|
Two complementary
strategies that are usually advocated for primary prevention are the
“population approach” and “high-risk approach.” In the former, community
wide interventions seek to modify behaviors and thereby influence the
distribution of risk factors in the population. Even modest changes in risk
factors are expected to contribute to a substantial reduction in the
cumulative population risk of CVD because of the large number of people
affected. The high risk strategy, on the other hand, seeks to identify the
few individuals who are at high risk, either because of marked elevation of
single or multiple risk factors; targeted behavioral or pharmacological
interventions follow. The population strategy aims to reduce the burden of
disease in the whole community while conferring small benefits to each
individual. The high-risk strategy, on the other hand, provides large
benefits to the few individuals who are most vulnerable but the benefits to
the whole community may be relatively limited because the beneficiaries are
few.
|