Sick people and sick populations--legacy of Geoffrey Rose

Developed by Geoffrey Rose strategy of preventive medicine caused a major breakthrough in thinking about the effectiveness of preventive measures. The distinction between actions within the high-risk groups against activities at the level of the whole population raised awareness of public health workers that focus on highly vulnerable individuals may lead to underestimation of the problem of cases among individuals out high risk groups, who due to their numbers in the population, participate to a greater number of cases. The author of this study points to the importance of this distinctions, but also highlights some methodological problems of Rose theory. It is postulated efficiency-oriented approach to prevention that takes into account integrated action which includes activities at the level of the whole population, but also an attempt to deliver individualized messages to smaller groups and ant to individuals including those beyond high-risk groups. In the author's opinion this is of particular importance in the context of strong social stratification.