The Cost of Prevention-Need of Hour

According to the World Health Organization, non-communicable diseases like diabetes and cardiovascular disease, which are brought on by a "combination of genetic, physiological, environmental, and behavioral factors", claim the lives of 41 million people annually or 71% of all fatalities. Every year, about 5.8 million people in India pass away from non-communicable diseases (heart and lung diseases, stroke, cancer, and diabetes), which translates to one in four Indians being at risk of passing away from non-communicable diseases before the age of 70 years. It is biologically plausible that chronic disease could be prevented or at least delayed via early detection and management of biomedical and lifestyle risk factors, and there is some evidence that periodic health evaluations can improve the delivery of some recommended preventive services.(1) The disability-adjusted life years have increased by 6.6%, 4.4%, 2.2%, and 0.9% for cardiovascular disease, chronic respiratory disease, diabetes, and breast cancer, respectively. The primary emphasis of health organizations' efforts to reduce fatalities from non-communicable diseases is cigarette use, physical inactivity, unhealthy food, and problematic alcohol consumption (2). Along with tackling the risk factors, another major step in combating non-communicable diseases is preventive health check-ups. Preventive health check-ups deal with the identification and minimization of disease risk factors, existing disease course improvement, and early disease detection through screening. This has become crucial since it allows people to know about their health issues well within time (3). Also, early diagnosis of disease in its latent phase aids in prompt intervention, lowering morbidity and death (3,4).