If the discount rate applied to future financial costs and benefits is also applied to future health benefits, preventive interventions are disvalued relative to interventions whose health benefits occur in the present (Schwappach 2007).
Among the essential health benefits, preventive care, childhood immunizations and adult vaccinations, and medical screenings are covered by an insurance plan's premiums, and cannot be subject to any co-payments, co-insurance, or deductibles.
The main aim of screening is to identify people with an increased probability to benefit from preventive interventions, generally from secondary prevention but also from primary prevention activities.
Further studies are warranted to demonstrate which patients might benefit from preventive treatment, e.g. to prevent clinical aggravation.
Those with migraines may also benefit from preventive medicines.
"Our joint investigation quickly identified those students and staff that would benefit from preventive testing".
Previous studies had shown the benefit of preventive radiation therapy to the head for patients whose tumors were concentrated in a small area.
But the new study suggests that such people would also benefit from preventive medicine, the same way that people with high cholesterol are prescribed drugs to reduce their risk of heart attack, the authors said.
Imaging may become the key to identifying people that could benefit from preventive intervention (Fig. 1).
