Efforts toward disease prevention in the community and the individual.
It covers patient interviews and testing to detect risk factors; sanitary measures in homes, communities, and medical facilities; patient education; and diet and exercise programs as well as preventive drugs and surgery. It has three levels: primary (e.g., prevention of coronary heart disease in a healthy person), secondary (e.g., prevention of heart attack in a person with heart disease), and tertiary (e.g., prevention of disability and death after a heart attack). The first is by far the most economical. Important advances in preventive medicine include vaccination (see vaccine ), antibiotics , diagnostic imaging , and recognition of psychological factors. See also epidemiology , immunology , industrial medicine , quarantine .