25 Steps To Better Health

(WebMD)  The Partnership for Prevention has released a report listing the top 25 preventive health services.

The report, "Priorities for America's Health: Capitalizing on Life-Saving, Cost-Effective Preventive Strategies," was funded by the CDC and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

"Currently, about 95 percent of health care dollars in the United States are spent on treating diseases, with relatively little attention paid to preventing diseases, which should be a national priority," states former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D., in a Partnership for Prevention news release.

"Basically, these are the preventive health services that offer the biggest bang for the buck," says Satcher, who chaired the panel that drafted the list.

List of Top 25 Preventive Health Services
Here is the report's list of the top 25 preventive health services, along with the score assigned by the panel (with 10 being the highest score):

Discussing daily aspirin use in men aged 40 and older, women aged 50 and older, and others at increased risk for heart disease to help prevent cardiovascular events such as heart attack and stroke: 10

Childhood immunizations: 10

Screening adults for tobacco use and providing brief counseling to help them quit using tobacco: 10

Colorectal cancer screening among adults aged 50 and older: 8

Measuring blood pressure in all adults and using high blood pressure medicines to prevent cardiovascular disease: 8

Influenza immunization for adults aged 50 and older: 8

Pneumococcal immunization for people aged 65 and older: 8

Screening adults about alcohol use and providing brief counseling with follow-up: 8

Vision screening for adults aged 65 and older: 8

Cervical cancer screening (Pap smears) among women who have been sexually active: 7

Cholesterol screening and lipid-lowering drugs, if needed, for men aged 35 and older, women aged 45 and older with other risk factors for coronary heart disease: 7

Breast cancer screening for women aged 50 and older; discussions and options to start screening at aged 40-49: 6

Screening sexually active women under age 25 for chlamydia, the most common sexually transmitted bacterial disease in the U.S.: 6

Counseling adolescent and adult women to use calcium supplements to prevent fractures: 6

Vision screening in children less than 5 years old: 6

Folic acid supplementation to help prevent birth defects: 5

Obesity screening: 5

Depression screening: 4

Hearing screening: 4

Injury prevention counseling: 4

Osteoporosis screening: 4

Cholesterol screening for high-risk adults: 2

Diabetes screening: 2

Diet counseling: 2

Tetanus-diphtheria booster vaccination: 2

About the List

A 24-member panel of experts created the list. Those experts came from health insurance plans, an employer group, academia, clinical practice, and government health agencies.

The panel created the list and scores based on two factors:

Disease, injury, and premature death that would be prevented if the service was delivered at recommended intervals over a lifetime.

Cost effectiveness.

The Partnership for Prevention is a national, nonprofit organization. Its members include several state health departments, health organizations (including the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, and March of Dimes), and several drug and insurance companies.

SOURCES: Partnership for Prevention, "Priorities for America's Health: Capitalizing on Life-Saving, Cost-Effective Preventive Services." Partnership for Prevention: "Members of Partnership for Prevention." News release, Partnership for

Miranda Hitti
Reviewed by Louise Chang, M.D.
© 2005, WebMD Inc. All rights reserved