Running head: FOUR TYPES OF CHRONIC DISEASE AND PREVENTION MEASURES 1

Four Types of Chronic Disease and Prevention Measures

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FOUR TYPES OF CHRONIC DISEASE AND PREVENTION MEASURES 2

Four Types of Chronic Disease and Prevention Measures

Four Common Causes of Chronic Diseases

Chronic diseases are a result of factors that are contributed to by the lifestyle behaviour

that individuals adopt. These factors include poor nutrition, tobacco use and exposure, stress and

depression, and excessive alcohol use. Poor nutrition involves the inadequacy of fruits and

vegetables in the diet (Berná & Romero‐Gomez, 2020). Diets that have an excess concentration

of sodium and saturated fats are also causes of chronic diseases. Poor nutrition causes diseases

such as developmental abnormalities hereditary metabolic disorders that can be responsive to

dietary treatment. Excessive use of tobacco and exposure affects an individual's health by

causing respiratory infections and risks diseases to most body organs; tobacco is a significant

risk factor to most cancers, heart disease, diabetes, and various health problems to the immune

system. Stress and depression are risks to the immune system and blood vessel health. Stress and

depression may not cause illnesses right away but could be significant symptoms that intensify

illness, and they may go unnoticed. The symptoms affect a person's mood, sleep, eating habits,

and daily activities. Excessive use of alcohol is a significant risk to cardiovascular and digestive

diseases, cancers and neuropsychiatric conditions. Alcohol weakens the immune system. Thus

making the body vulnerable to infectious diseases. 

Critical Components of Prevention Effectiveness

The critical components of effective chronic diseases prevention include epidemiology

and surveillance, which involves collecting data from various sources on chronic diseases, and

the risk factors (Bourgeois et al., 2019). The data includes birth and death certificates,

behavioural risk factors surveys, healthcare systems and registration of chronic diseases cases
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and deaths. The second prevention effectiveness method is environmental approaches such as

establishing smoke-free air laws that cover public places such as restaurants, workplaces, and

protecting non-smokers from exposure to secondhand smoking. Increasing prices for unhealthy

products such as tobacco helps protect society from the uses and exposure of unhealthy products.

Healthcare intervention systems also help strengthen prevention effectiveness by providing

resources that enable early screening of diseases, reducing risk factors and managing

complications. Development of community programs that connect people to resources that will

improve their lifestyle, and slow down the risk factors, will enable prevention effectiveness. The

resources will also make it possible to avoid chronic illness complications and reduce healthcare

for most individuals. 

The Effective Preventive Efforts for Diabetes That Must Occur to Yield Health Benefits

Diabetes practical preventive efforts that can yield health benefits for the patients include

lifestyle change programs. Lifestyle change programs will reduce the rates of diabetes patients

and the chances of increasing complications (Nazir et al., 2018). The programs can be self-

managed based on the healthcare providers' training or organized groups facilitated by competent

nutritional and healthcare providers. The programs involve physical exercises, diet planning and

medication prescribed by the physician.

Conclusion

Healthcare providers can treat chronic diseases, although they require a lot of

commitment from the patients, and they can be costly. Those who cannot be treated healthcare

providers have healthcare techniques to prevent escalation of complications and follow up on

patients to ensure that they follow the instruction that guarantees their health recovery. Early

screening provided by healthcare facilities enables the prevention of diseases and reduces the
FOUR TYPES OF CHRONIC DISEASE AND PREVENTION MEASURES 2

risk of complication to those unaware of the illness. Therefore community programs are essential

for reaching out to the population to help them control and manage chronic diseases risk factors.