Marketing principles and the future of preventive health care

Whether preventive programs are advanced as complementary to therapy or as partial substitutes to lower costs, public resistance makes the cost effectiveness of these programs questionable. "Marketing" may be helpful in differentiating among the nature of products, services, and ideas of prevention, on the one hand, and heterogeneous consumer needs, attitudes, and responsibilities on the other. Making policy for marketing will involve new strategies and use of leverage: the "message' is not the only medium.