Prevention+relative+to+treatment

Even though variations in health care delivery occur in different parts of the world, the system of delivery is as important as the availability and access to the health facility.
 * Prevention relative to treatment **

There are 2 main systems of medical/health delivery. These are: Preventive health care emphasizes the need to prevent the incidence of the disease before it occurs. Eg. Polio vaccination in Ghana every December. Curative health care involves treating the symptoms of the disease after the person has been infected. Curative health care involves massive investment in medical infrastructure by gov’t in the form of hospitals, training nurses and doctors and providing enough resources to make them functional. Most countries in the world focus on curative health care rather than the preventive one.
 * Preventive Health Care
 * Curative Health Care

A third system combines both curative and preventive health care: Primary health care and it is seen as a better alternative for LEDCs.

The story of Maijang County – page 411-417 of Planet Geography. Important geographical factors that were considered include:
 * Case study of China’s primary health care in Guihou (Majiang county) **
 * The population density of the area
 * Distance from the county’s main hospital
 * The state of/or quality of medical facility – is it collapsing or can be useful over a long period?
 * The presence of physical barriers that may hinder travels to the nearest medical facility for treatment.

Question:
 * Referring to one or more diseases, discuss the factors that determine the relative importance of policies of disease prevention as opposed to policies of treatment. [10 marks]**

Numerous factors are relevant to this response, depending on the particular disease or diseases chosen. They include:
 * relative costs per patient of treatment compared with prevention;- if the cost per patient in treating the disease is more expensive, one will prefer going for prevention and vice versa.
 * cost-effectiveness and availability of disease-specific preventative measures such as vaccinations;
 * whether or not the disease in question spreads by diffusion, and if so by which type of diffusion; for example expansion diffusion, hierarchical diffusion,contagious diffusion, network and relocation diffusion.
 * potential long-term health or economic impacts of an outbreak of the disease in question;
 * pressure from disease-specific non-governmental organizations.