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The value of medical care for health promotion.

M I Roemer

A "rediscovery" of the value of prevention in the 1970s has led to the denigration of medical care, which had been occurring also for other reasons--aversion to high technology, demonstrable abuses, spiraling medical costs, etc. The achievements of prevention in conquering infectious diseases had long been recognized, and preventive strategies in the 1970s and 1980s were beginning to show reductions in mortality from the non-communicable chronic diseases as well. Yet the benefits of medical care in extending life expectancy over recent decades have often been overlooked. The quality of life in the later years has also been substantially improved by effective medical care. Most important, access to medical care has definite value in facilitating the prevention of disease and the promotion of health, both in developing and developed countries. It is too often forgotten that prevention embodies a range of activities, merging from general health promotion through specific disease prevention and early case-detection to rehabilitation and prevention of disability. Medical care, in other words, should not be counterposed to prevention, but rather should be integrated with it for the benefit of both health strategies.