Hesperian Health Guides
Working for Change
Working toward a balance between treatment and prevention
Health workers and anyone else working to improve the health of the community can play an important role in stopping illnesses before they start. But often a person’s main need is not preventing illness but getting relief from an illness they already have. One of the first concerns of a health worker, then, must be to help with healing.
But treatment can be used as a doorway to prevention. One of the best times to talk to someone about prevention is when they come to see you for help with a health problem. For example, if a woman comes to you with an infection of the urine system, treat the problem first. Then take time to explain how she can prevent these infections in the future.
Work toward a balance between prevention and treatment that is acceptable to people you see. This balance will depend a lot on how people already feel about sickness, healing, and health. As daily survival becomes less of a challenge, as their ideas about health change, and more diseases are controlled, you may find that they are more able to think about prevention. Then much suffering can be avoided, and you can help women and others in the community work toward more effective self-care.
Health workers can play an important role in helping women work together to prevent women’s health problems in the community.
