Disease Prevention Programs Worth the Investment

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Levi said the report is "a call to action for people to recognize the importance of investing in these kinds of prevention measures."

"The programs recommended by the Trust for America's Health is an absolutely complementary approach" to preventive measures recently proposed in a collaboration by the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society and the American Diabetes Association, said Dr. Rose Marie Robertson, chief science officer of the heart association.

"In the paper we just published, we looked at the concept that if people in the United States have some risk factor for cardiovascular disease, cancer or diabetes, they should see a health provider and get guidance to reduce or eliminate the risk factor," Robertson said.

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Both approaches concentrate on the same risk factors, such as high blood pressure, smoking and lack of physical activity, but one proposes community programs, and the other suggests individual activity guided by physicians, she said.

The endpoints measured in the two programs were different. "What we looked at primarily was the life years saved," Robertson said. "People would not only live longer but have good quality years. They would add millions of quality-adjusted life years."

People worried about known risk factors should see a physician, she said. "There is a cost to doing that, but it doesn't cost as much as many of the things we think are reasonable. And you get great bang for the buck."

More information

The full report on preventive programs and the money they would save is available from the Trust for America's Health.

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