Abstract

March 2008

Section Clinical Essentials

Public interest in disease and injury prevention is very high, driven by a steady accumulation of high-quality evidence that preventive interventions do reduce cause-specific death rates. The purpose of these interventions is to eliminate the root causes of diseases that precede death (e.g., heart disease, cancer, and stroke). This chapter presents a review of health risks posed by substance abuse (tobacco, alcohol, and drugs), accidents (e.g., from motor vehicles, falling, fire, drowning, and firearms), and domestic violence. The physician's role in prevention is to identify risk factors for disease and injury and counsel patients about modifying potentially harmful behaviors. A figure illustrates life expectancy of men and women in the United States. Tables list recommendations of the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), years of smoking abstinence needed to reduce risk of disease, elements of a successful smoking cessation strategy, stages of readiness for smoking cessation, test performance of screening questionnaires for alcohol abuse, the CAGE questionnaire, and risk factors for falls among the elderly. A sidebar provides links to domestic violence information on the Internet. This chapter contains 65 references.

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