Preventive health is the use of recognized proactive health screenings, counseling and maintenance to prevent future illness and treatment. Preventive health is also known as preventive medicine or prophylaxis.

Preventive health measures focus on preventable disease, injury and patient illness that can be caught early to save the patient suffering from the resulting condition. Aside from regularly advised healthy diet and exercise, physicians use other preventative health measures. By using early screenings, warning signs for many health conditions can be detected and the conditions prevented or their impact reduced if they are found early. Including regular doctor checkups and appropriate immunizations, proactive screening measures can help discover many health conditions in their early stages, including depression, sexually transmitted infections (STI), cancer and diabetes.

Even if you feel fine, you should still see your provider for regular checkups. These visits can help you avoid problems in the future. For example, the only way to find out if you have high blood pressure is to have it checked regularly. High blood sugar and high cholesterol levels also may not have any symptoms in the early stages. A simple blood test can check for these conditions.

Blood pressure

Blood sugar

Cholesterol (blood)

Colon cancer screening test

Depression screening

Genetic testing for breast cancer or ovarian cancer in certain women

HIV test

Mammogram

Osteoporosis screening

Pap smear

Tests for chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, and other sexually transmitted diseases