Health promotion and disease prevention

Health promotion and disease prevention programmes improve the health status of populations, preserve freedom, and empower individuals. Yet, despite important advances in many countries, including a more health-conscious public, it would be beneficial in the United States and in other countries to have a comprehensive plan to make health promotion and disease prevention personal and societal priorities. I have called this climate a 'culture of character', a climate of individual responsibility to encourage healthy behaviour. I want to encourage the readers of Medical Education to participate in the formulation of plans to implement greater health promotion and disease prevention efforts. Such a climate of personal responsibility could be created if doctors, educators and policy-makers agreed on some workable, positive goals and steps that would help meet realistic national goals over a defined period of time. If there were such agreement, then doctors could more clearly focus their own efforts with their patients, in concert with other health professionals, and with policy-makers who have the same goal--healthier people.