A Case for Prevention in Health and Climate Change Issues
The current COVID-19 pandemic has given me time to reflect on what good health is and how my personal attitudes towards behaviors in line with good health have changed due to the pandemic.
As a high-school student, I have never put much thought into my personal health and its resounding influence on my perspective. Yes, I was cognizant of the importance of eating healthy, exercising, and the different types of wellness (i.e. mental, social, spiritual, and emotional). However, I largely dismissed the consequences of my personal health on a distant future; I truly didn’t understand how my personal health would affect both those around me and my future self. I lightheartedly made excuses like “I can worry about heart problems and type 2 diabetes in my 50s” without extending too much thought beyond those claims.
Like many others, I fell prey to the “present bias”ー the general tendency to discount future outcomes for present outcomes. This prevalent behavioral economics principle captures our short-term thinking and readiness to put things off until a later point in time.
If anything, the COVID-19 pandemic has taught me the value of prevention. Who would’ve thought that an infectious disease would bring the entire world to stand-still?
Our present world is ever-changing. Because of uncertainties becoming even more prevalent from one day to the next, prevention and preparedness are critical. The implications of these range from individual actions, such as the cultivation of healthy habits, to the development of policies that prioritize equity and the health of the environment.
What is prevention?
In epidemiology, there are multiple types of prevention: primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary. Primary prevention refers to any practice that reduces the risk factors for a disease or prevents initial exposure to agents like reducing smoking or encouraging hand-washing practices. Secondary prevention involves screening and/or instituting treatment during an asymptomatic stage. Tertiary prevention is used to arrest, slow, or reverse disease progression after symptoms are present. Lastly, quaternary prevention is targeted at the reduction of unnecessary/excessive health system interventions.
As one progresses through the types of prevention, the capacity for change becomes narrower. The importance of proactive behavior extends from individual cases into the entire healthcare industry. According to the CDC, over 75% of healthcare costs came from the management of chronic illnesses, which are strongly influenced (and are even avoidable) by human behavior.
While the field of public health is primarily concerned with the prevention of illness and the promotion of good health, general healthcare investments in new treatments and/or diagnostics disproportionately outweigh those of population medicine or innovations designed to keep us healthier.
Extension to Climate Change
The recognition of the benefits of prevention within the long term instead of succumbing to the present bias offers insight on how we can deal with future-oriented challenges such as climate change. Climate change refers to long-term changes in the average weather patterns defining the climates of different regions.
Though the earth’s climate has warmed and cooled cyclically for the past 2.5 million years, what is concerning now is that the current climate change is driven primarily by human actions — leading to higher temperatures, sea level rise, increased floods and droughts, and greater concentrations of greenhouse gases within the atmosphere. Climate change is truly affecting nearly every domain from agriculture to health. By the time we would recognize a trend due to climate change, any effort to slow it down would be futile.
Similar to epidemiology, there are 2 strategies in climate science: adaptation and mitigation. While mitigation is focused on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by confronting their sources, adaptation is aimed at reducing the impacts of climate-change induced trends. However, the efficacy of adaptation is limited by the challenges of predicting the exact location, duration, and severity of these events.
One thing is clear: the issues of climate change and health affect our futures just as much as those of future generations.
The two most important realizations I have had as a high school student reflecting on the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change are the following.
The course of our health and earth is dependent on our mindset and choices.
Can we rationally consider the long-term effects of our actions rather than succumb to short-term nearsightedness? Are we willing to recognize the consequences of our actions on the environment and personal health?
Both of these challenges require a shift of thinking to prioritize proactiveness and prevention on both the individual and system levels.
Nothing exists in isolation.
When I first heard of the novel coronavirus pandemic in Wuhan in early January, I didn’t take it seriously; after all, the United States is more than 7000 miles away. However, with our ever-changing world and the continuous increase in global interconnectedness and interdependence, actions taken abroad are felt by those near our home.
We must realize that both our health and the health of our planet rests within understanding the consequences of our actions and rejecting the present bias.
As President John F. Kennedy once said, “Let us accept our responsibility for our [collective global] future”
References
Health and Economic Costs of Chronic Disease. (2020, March 23). Retrieved. April 21, 2020, from https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/about/costs/index.htm
Institute of Medicine (US) Roundtable on Evidence-Based Medicine. (1970, January 1). Missed Prevention Opportunities. Retrieved April 21, 2020, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK53914/
Jameson, J. L., Kasper, D. L., Fauci, A. S., Hauser, S. L., Longo, D. L., Loscalzo, J., & Harrison, T. R. (2018). Behavioral Economics and Health. Harrison’s Principles of Internal medicine. New York: McGraw-Hill Education.
Overview: Weather, Global Warming and Climate Change. (2019, August 28). Retrieved April 21, 2020, from https://climate.nasa.gov/resources/global-warming-vs-climate-change/
The Effects of Climate Change. (2019, September 30). Retrieved from https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/
