By Dr. Srivats Bharadwaj, Chairman & CEO, Vatsalya Dental, Bengaluru

We are living through what is perhaps the worst collective nightmare in recent times, one with no end in sight. Covid-19 has spread with alarming speed and intensity infecting millions, killing hundreds of thousands, and leaving many in recovery with debilitating side effects. The pandemic has had unprecedented socio-economic implications.

Yet, the most glaring observation of the pandemic is also the most ironical - any knowledgeable medical professional will tell you that they saw this coming for a while now. Global spending on health has risen drastically in recent years to US$ 7.8 trillion in 2017, or about 10% of GDP mostly on intervention led research and care.

Covid-19 has focused the spotlight on the sheer unpreparedness and inability of our healthcare systems to cope with threats of this magnitude. It has also driven home the lacunae in infection control measures at the individual and institutional levels, forcing people and households to embrace a highly clinical approach to infection control. There is a dire need to recast our individual lifestyles, healthcare policies, research and infrastructure to shift gears to primordial prevention and preventive research.

What is primordial prevention?

Primordial prevention addresses the root cause of risk factors to prevent the onset and growth of illnesses and diseases. It refers to measures taken to stem the development of these ailments, rather than reacting to control their effects.

These preventive measures are rooted in the intersection of environmental, economic, social, cultural and behavioral conditions and practices. In fact, the traditional Indian socio-cultural ethos has always incorporated primordial preventive healthcare as a way of life. If you grew up in India in the last century, you would have likely followed some of the following practices at home:

With advancement in sciences and lifestyle, however, a lot of these practices changed as we blindly aped the western way of life. Despite tremendous appreciable progress in modern medicine, the focus in the last few decades has shifted drastically from preventive medical support to reactive, intervention-led care.

In todays world of instant gratification, we have begun to glorify acute care measures as the results are obvious and immediate, and this has become the norm. But the focus on intervention only provides short-lived results and the healthcare system falls apart in the face of a true challenge such has the pandemic we are now living through.

The case for investing in primordial prevention

Primordial prevention is an intangible entity and therefore, not given its due value as it is tough to quantify the benefits and outcomes of preventive measures. Comparison against other parameters also becomes difficult with no immediate, visible results.

Added to this is the natural tendency of the human mind and our conditioning (and modern media focus) to associate and drive cause-benefit correlations only between recent events and occurrences. This is driven by our strong recall of immediate events and poor long-term memory. Consider this: Until Coronavirus surfaced, we had mostly forgotten the devastating effects of the 1918 Spanish Flu, one of the worst epidemics that we could have learnt so much from.

It is also human nature to overreact to immediate problems staring us in the face and under-react to long-term threats that build up slowly over time. However, if one needed numbers to substantiate the import of investing in primordial preventive healthcare, take this. Preliminary estimates in May 2020 by the Asian Development Bank suggests a USD 5.8 8.8 trillion loss to the global economy due to Covid19. And actuals could be much worse depending on how long the pandemic lasts. Not to mention the loss of over 610,000 lives at the time of drafting this article.

Covid-19 will not be the last pandemic we see in this century. Healthcare globally needs a thorough rehaul and we must shift gears from reactive panic to preventive preparation. Heres how:

The cost and effort of prevention is extremely high can we afford it? But then, the present nightmare also begs us to ask, can we afford to not do it? The medical fraternity needs to stop focusing on treating heart attacks and strokes, and instead, focus on preventing them. At the individual and social level, we need to re-establish some of the validated lifestyle practices from yore that aid infection control. The time to shift focus to primordial preventive healthcare is NOW. And the way to do it is to take a step back in time and lifestyle practices, in order to move forward.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETHealthworld.com does not necessarily subscribe to it. ETHealthworld.com shall not be responsible for any damage caused to any person/organisation directly or indirectly.

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Shifting the focus in healthcare to primordial prevention - ETHealthworld.com