Commentary on the Culture of Prevention
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Commentary on the Culture of Prevention Zili Sloboda 1 & Susan B. David 1
# Society for Prevention Research 2020
Abstract Despite significant progress in prevention science over the past 30 years in developing evidence-based interventions and policies, there has not been equal success in attracting support from policymakers and gaining acceptance by communities. In recognition of this gap, the editors of Prevention Science put out a call to scientists to help clarify and define the concept of a “culture of prevention.” Such a culture would influence the creation of an infrastructure for implementing and sustaining the most effective strategies informed by research. The journal call stated a culture of prevention was a “general orientation or readiness of a group of people… to address problems by using a preventive, rather than a reactive approach.” This commentary examines the concept demonstrated in the array of papers presented here in which the “culture of prevention” is applied in different contexts—occupational safety and health, substance use, school, governmental, community, around problem behaviors, and violence. It is important to note that the papers represent perspectives and experiences from several countries, including some cross-national experiences providing an international framework. While a final definition awaits further research, the commentary summarizes important elements that might constitute that evolving definition and pave the way for the implementation of more effective prevention programming.
Within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, writing a commentary on the concept of establishing and maintaining a “culture of prevention” takes on a more emergent and relevant significance. At what cost in human lives has the failure to have a universal prevention culture with a public health infrastructure in place at this time! This represents a clash between science, economics, politics, and “living.” Yet as represented in the papers on the “culture of prevention,” there needs to be synergy across these domains for a “culture of prevention” to get established and then survive. And, similar to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, while we seek necessary medical and pharmacologic solutions to address the pandemic, we are employing behavioral strategies—now wearing masks and social distancing—to protect until biological preventives become available. A review of the literature on the responses to and lessons learned with regard to the H1N1 and H5N1 epidemics (e.g., American College of Physicians et al. 2006; Fineberg 2014) lays out a planning process to assess and respond to growing infections. If nothing else, our “new normal” of life in this pandemic underscores the need for a universal embrace of a “culture of prevention.”
* Zili Sloboda [email protected] 1
Applied Prevention Science International, 255 Sloboda Avenue, Ontario, OH 44906, USA
Despite advances in prevention science and their application to evidence-based prevention interventions and practices, the prevention field is cha
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