Transcript: Rose's Two Pronged Approach to Disease Prevention

It’s important to remember that — although Rose emphasized the importance of population-level interventions — he did not argue in favour of neglecting the health needs of high-risk segments of the population.

This figure illustrates Rose’s two-pronged approach to disease prevention.

First, high risk approaches should focus on finding and treating individuals at greatest risk when feasible.

Second, and of greater importance to public health, upstream population approaches, such as policy change or mass communication campaigns, should address those at low to moderate risk of chronic disease by positively shifting the distribution of illness to healthier population-level outcomes.