Using patient-driven computers to provide cost-effective prevention in primary care: a conceptual framework

Health care prevention refers generically to initiatives that can be broadly positioned along a continuum from primary to tertiary level prevention. Primary prevention initiatives attempt to ensure health problems, or the processes that culminate in health problems, do not occur (Beaglehole et al., 1993). Examples include educational campaigns and structural and legislative approaches, such as the modification of taxation, advertising and packaging laws, as well as their enforcement (Shakeshaft et al., 1997). Secondary prevention initiatives aim to identify and then terminate or modify existing behaviours or diseases that increase health risks, or the processes that culminate in these, at the earliest possible moment (Beaglehole et al., 1993). Tertiary prevention initiatives aim to stop or slow the progress and sequelae of existing behaviours or diseases that increase health risks, or the processes that culminate in these, even though the basic condition persists (Beaglehole et al., 1993). Secondary and tertiary prevention initiatives regarding drug and alcohol misuse in Australia, for example, have been characterized