Preventive healthcare is what you do to stay healthy. Regular checkups and maintaining good habits can help prevent chronic conditions and identify potential issues so you can properly treat them.
Here are some preventive measures you can take toward staying as healthy as possible.
Check on things
Annual checkups and screenings help you understand your health status and treatment options. Keeping up with these regular checkups informs you about your health and allows you to detect things that may become future problems.
- Regular checkups:
- Primary care annual exam
- Gynecology exam
- Dental visits
- Eye exams
- Skin checks
- Health screenings (mammograms, pap tests, sexually transmitted infection screening, blood work)
- Vaccinations:
- Routine immunizations
- Annual flu shot
- COVID-19 vaccine
Maintain good lifestyle choices
Daily habits and choices that help your body and mind function are ways to prevent health issues. These include:
- Eating healthy meals with whole foods, fruits, vegetables, and lean and plant-based protein.
- Limiting sugary drinks and processed foods.
- Staying active by exercising regularly.
- Getting the right amount of sleep has many good preventive benefits. Proper sleep lowers the risk of chronic conditions, improves heart health and metabolism, reduces stress, and supports your immune system, so you get sick less often.
- Avoiding unhealthy habits, such as limiting alcohol and stopping smoking.
- Managing your stress and any mood disorders by getting the support you need.
Understand your family history
Your family history is an essential tool in your preventive care. Genetic factors, as well as a shared environment, lifestyles, and habits that run in families, can contribute to health issues such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Awareness of these risks helps you take an active role in managing your health. Work with your healthcare provider to monitor for early signs and to ensure you receive timely screenings.
To gather your family health history:
- Write down the health conditions of close relatives, including parents, siblings, and grandparents.
- Note the ages when they developed those conditions.
- Share this information with your healthcare providers, and remember to update the information regularly.
Learn about the factors that contribute to your health outlook
Learning about what risks you may have based on sex, culture, and race is another way to dig deeper into protecting your health. Knowing the factors that can challenge your health can help you and your provider better understand what to watch for.
- Women and those assigned female at birth have a higher risk of developing certain cancers and autoimmune diseases, suffer from depression and anxiety at higher rates, are prone to anemia, are impacted by heart disease and have a higher risk of stroke and thyroid conditions.
- Women tend to have a higher risk of Alzheimer’s.
- Many communities have a higher risk of developing certain conditions. Across all BIPOC communities, heart disease is widespread, but some have higher risks for specific conditions. For example, stroke is a leading cause of death among Black women.
- Hispanic women tend to develop diabetes and cervical cancer at a higher rate.
- White and Asian women have a higher risk of osteoporosis, a disease that causes your bones to become weak and prone to breaking.
Continue preventive care even after a diagnosis
Preventive care can help avoid new health problems, stop existing ones from getting worse, and even improve your health. So keep in mind that being predisposed to or diagnosed with a condition such as high blood pressure or Type 2 diabetes doesn’t mean that preventive care is not going to help you. It’s one of the first things recommended to help keep your symptoms under control.
Consider yourself your first provider when it comes to your health. The actions you take to manage your health can positively impact your overall wellbeing in the future. Developing a plan with your healthcare providers will help you stay on track and get the support you need.
Reviewed by the Ovia Health Clinical Team
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Sources
- “Are You Up to Date on Your Preventive Care?” Chronic Disease, 24 May 2024, www.cdc.gov/chronic-disease/prevention/preventive-care.html.
- “Collecting a Family History.” American Medical Association, 22 Jan. 2020, www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/precision-medicine/collecting-family-history#:~:text=A%20properly%20collected%20family%20history,early%20warning%20signs%20of%20disease.
- “Family History is Important for Your Health – Understanding Genetics – NCBI Bookshelf.” National Center for Biotechnology Information, 8 July 2009, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK115560.
- “FAMILY HISTORY IS IMPORTANT FOR YOUR HEALTH – Understanding Genetics – NCBI Bookshelf.” National Center for Biotechnology Information, 8 July 2009, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK115560.
- Medicine, Northwestern. “9 Health Issues Every Woman Should Understand.” Northwestern Medicine, 19 Apr. 2019, www.nm.org/healthbeat/healthy-tips/9-health-issues-every-woman-should-understand.
- “Risk Factors for Alzheimer’s Disease.” Alzheimer’s Society, www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/types-dementia/who-gets-alzheimers-disease.
- “Routine Screenings.” Johns Hopkins Medicine, www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-therapies/routine-screenings#:~:text=For%20most%20adults%2C%20depending%20on,tests%20are%20right%20for%20you.
- Tesch, David. “What is Preventive Care & Why Does It Matter?” HealthPartners Blog, 21 June 2024, www.healthpartners.com/blog/preventive-care-101-what-why-and-how-much.
