Discuss the alternative perspective to the high-risk approach of health promotion

Answer 1

With the "risk-reduction" approach to health promotion, researchers seek to conserve the resources for those who are not physically fit, smoke, or weigh too much while not being too concerned with others who are relatively healthy. However, Geoffrey Rose, starting in 1981, and others have challenged the high-risk perspective of health promotion. In examining concurrent heart disease risk patterns among many industrialized countries, researchers have shown that nations and societies evidence relatively healthy and unhealthy profiles that cannot be fully explained by aggregate individual risks. These risk differentials are known as Population Attributable Risk (PAR), and the public health promotion implications are quite distinct from those of the high-risk approach. Working within the context of the PAR, we seek not just to identify and treat high-risk individuals, but instead to change entire communities and (implicitly) their social and physical environments to reduce the risk of future disease.?