Health Promotion, Disease Prevention, and Health-Enhancing Behaviors
Domain 3 tests how prevention and promotion differ, how risk and protective factors interact, and how to select strategies that change behavior and environments.
Core rules
- Health promotion enables people to increase control over health determinants. Prevention is organized by timing: primary prevents onset; secondary detects early; tertiary limits complications.
- Social determinants include income, housing, education, food access, and safety. Health disparities are avoidable differences among groups.
- Communicable disease control targets the chain of infection: agent, host, environment, portal of entry, and transmission. Immunization, hand hygiene, ventilation, and exclusion policies interrupt it.
- Noncommunicable diseases share modifiable risks such as tobacco, poor diet, inactivity, and alcohol.
Worked example
A district adds HPV vaccination reminders. HPV vaccination is primary prevention because it prevents infection before disease. A blood pressure screening is secondary prevention because it finds existing risk early. A cardiac rehab program is tertiary. The reasoning depends on timing, not on whether the activity is educational.
Traps
Do not call screening diagnosis; screening identifies likely cases that need diagnostic confirmation. Do not confuse incidence (new cases) with prevalence (existing cases). Do not infer causation from correlation. Do not assume information alone changes behavior; address access, norms, and skills.