Health Promotion Levels

Health Promotion: A comparison between Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Levels Brandy Floyd
Grand Canyon University: Family-centered Health Promotion NRS-429V
September 9, 2013

Health Promotion: A comparison between Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Levels Health Promotion and prevention can be used interchangeably in that as a society we need to start promoting healthier lifestyles now in order to prevent disease and poor health later in life. This interchange of terms is seen in the definition of prevention in the publication, The Language of Prevention, “A description of the concept of ‘prevention’ is provided as the term used to refer to the efforts of society to promote, protect, and sustain the health of the population,” (2006,
Every time a nurse walks into a patient’s room they must use that time as a way to educate the patient. “There are ample opportunities for health systems to advocate, enable and mediate for health, to change policies, legislation and practices to create and ensure more equitable health-promoting environments,” (Ziglio, Simpson, & Agis, 2011, p. 219). Nurses and other healthcare providers are now being looked at as models of health promotion due to our advanced knowledge of health and our access to resources to maintain and promote health. Healthcare providers are now being looked at from the community in regards to health promotion as
These levels are the Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary levels. By following the three levels of health promotion society can be lead in a variety of ways to a healthier lifestyle. From something as focused as Heart disease al the way to eco-climatic change the three levels of health promotion provide a guideline of target groups in which to focus our goals of health promotion. “Primary prevention is to limit the incidence of disease and disability in the population by measures that eliminate or reduce causes or determinants of departures from good health, control exposure to risk, and promote factors that are protective of health,” (2006, p. 3). The primary level’s goal is to effect change within a population as a whole. For example, According to the American Heart Association, “The health of populations throughout the world is seriously compromised by the ubiquitous occurrence of CVD. Most important are the atherosclerotic and hypertensive diseases.These 2 conditions have been projected for the year 202 as ranked first and second in frequency among causes of death,” (Labarthe & Dunbar, 2012). Therefore it is the goal of the American Heart Association to promote health within the population to reduce the effects of heart