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Prevention Strategies
Primary Prevention (Prevention):
Proactive focus is on adults/youth/ children who are well. The aim is to prevent the initial occurrence of problem behaviours or diseases by focusing on risk factors or environmental conditions (e.g., Strong Start® )
Secondary Prevention (Intervention):
Focus is on adults/youth/children who are already at risk. The aim is to stop or slow down existing problem behaviours or diseases through actions on contributing factors (e.g., University of Waterloo/Kids in Action)
Tertiary Prevention (Treatment):
Focus is on adults/youth/children who have a disease or social behaviour problem. The aim is to reduce the impact of the already present health or behaviour problem and/or the occurrence of relapses (e.g., Ray of Hope/ P.I.E.C.E.S.)
Harm Reduction:
Actions to decrease the adverse health, social and economic consequences of engaging in risky behaviours without requiring abstinence
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Prevention Chart:
Chart by Rufus Chaffee and Jack Pransky
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Characteristics of True Prevention Programs
A focus on people who are well (the problem to be prevented is not already present)
A population approach (everyone gets the intervention)
A proactive, intentional emphasis on promoting wellness & preventing problems (by changing environments, promoting health, building skills, promoting awareness, providing supports)
What makes an effective prevention program?
Comprehensive & long-term
Focused & intensive
Uses the human resources of the community
Provides for adequate planning time
Is based on sound theory
Focuses on building strengths & capacity, rather than treating problems
Has secure, long-term funding
Is visible within the community
The community feels a sense of ownership of the program
Challenges in Measuring Change in Prevention Programs
Change can take a long time to happen
Changes are dependent on lots of other things besides your program
You need something against which to compare your program to show that it was your program that produced the change
People may not want to answer questionnaires & surveys truthfully (or at all)
It may be unreasonable to expect population-level changes from a program that only reaches a relatively small proportion of young people
Source: Dr. Mark Pancer from a slide presentation Measuring Prevention –Waterloo Funder’s Alliance Workshop May 2004