Assumption 5: Public Health Nursing Practice Emphasizes Prevention – Q/A (Question and Answer)

Answer:

Prevention is “anticipatory action taken to prevent the occurrence of an event or to minimize its effect after it has occurred” (Turnock, 2009, p 516). Prevention is customarily described as a continuum moving from primary to tertiary prevention (Leavell and Clark, 1965; Novick and Mays, 2001; Turnock, 2009). The Levels of Prevention box provides definitions and examples of the levels of prevention.

A hallmark of public health nursing practice is a focus on health promotion and disease prevention, emphasizing primary prevention whenever possible. Although not every event is preventable, every event has a preventable component.