How will we adjust to this new world we live in? Let’s be honest, the covid-19 virus will not go away anytime soon, and we will permanently be affected by it. Whether that means vaccine passports for travel access or having to wear a mask everywhere we go, this is life now. We may not be able to see the effects clearly yet because we are still in the middle of a pandemic, but life has not and will not be the same for many of us. Some of us have underlying disease which make us more susceptible to other illnesses while others are still healthy. Now more than ever, health promotion is crucial for our survival, not only to protect ourselves but also to protect those around us.
There are three levels of prevention efforts outlined by Gruman, Schneider, and Coutts (2016) which are primary prevention, secondary prevention, and tertiary prevention. In primary prevention, efforts are much more minimal than that in tertiary prevention as it only involves keeping healthy individuals healthy, through educational efforts to prevent them from contracting an illness (Gruman et al., 2016). Secondary prevention occurs when an individual already has a medical condition but aims towards keeping the condition from developing further (Gruman et al., 2016). Lastly, tertiary prevention occurs when a medical condition can no longer be prevented so the individual must make lifestyle changes to adjust to the disorder (Gruman et al., 2016).
I have noticed that people usually don’t worry about their health unless there’s a reason to. Regardless of the public information available, unless someone is affected by an illness or disorder, the individual is generally carefree about their health re-lated choices. For example, someone who’s been diagnosed with a gastric ulcer would have to stick to a regular eating schedule and watch what they eat. They probably used to be healthy but bad eating habits or lack of food resulted in a stomach issue. Since they’ve already been affected by an illness (secondary prevention), they’d have to take extra caution as when and what they eat to avoid further complications.
Now, to apply these examples to the pandemic situation noted earlier, not everyone is following the covid-19 rules and precautions. This makes it harder for the virus to be contained and from it mutating even more. There’s a lot frustration around the changes we have all had to make but I think our behaviors will lead to a divided world in the future. Overall, primary prevention can only do so much because people are less caring if they think they’re healthy and unaffected by a problem.
References:
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology : Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com