• Prevention can be simply defined as ‘action to reduce or eliminate or reduce the onset, causes, complications or recurrence of disease
• The four levels of prevention, corresponding to different phases in the development of disease, are primordial, primary, secondary and tertiary.
Each of these levels targets factors or conditions which have an established role
in causing disease.
• In situations where the evidence of such a role is incomplete, but the risk of not preventing a public health threat is deemed too high, preventive actions may still be taken and can be labelled “precautionary prevention”.
• Approaches to prevention overlap and merge, yet all levels are important and complementary.