Prevention and Smoking Cessation

Prevention: Fitness and Smoking Cessation
The Triple Solution for a Healthier America is a three-part approach to tackle chronic diseases, promote a healthier life, and lower healthcare costs by focusing on Prevention, Intervention, and Innovation.

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The Triple Solution for a Healthier America: Using Prevention to reduce chronic disease, promote a healthier life, and lower healthcare costs of diabetes and other chronic diseases The Triple Solution for a Healthier America: Using Intervention to better manage chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes, promote a healthier life, and lower healthcare costs. The Triple Solution for a Healthier America: Using Innovation to reduce chronic disease and lower healthcare costs. Learn what you can do to reduce chronic disease, lower healthcare costs, and live a healthier life through personal, professional, and political involvement with the Triple Solution for a Healthier America.

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The first key to lowering healthcare costs is to prevent people from becoming ill. Steps like these can help Americans avoid chronic diseases:

  • Eating well.
  • Vaccines.
  • Wellness visits.

Prevention: It Starts with You

Obesity rates in the United States have grown dramatically. Some leaders say almost 30% of the growth in healthcare spending during 1987 to 2001 was due to obesity.1

Two keys to curbing obesity are:

  • Adjust the amount and type of food you eat.
  • Participate in regular physical activity.

Physical activity provides many preventive benefits, including:

  • Weight control.
  • Decreased risk of dying from heart disease.
  • Reduced risk of developing diabetes, high blood pressure, and colon cancer.3

Immunizations are more than just a way to defend against childhood disease. They offer real benefits to adults as well. Including adult vaccination as a part of a basic patient-centered prevention health benefits package makes good public health and economic sense.

  • CDC recommends 261 million people or 86% of the total U.S. population for influenza vaccination.

The smoking rate in the United States has remained steady at 21% despite public efforts to reduce it. Direct and indirect costs of smoking are more than $3,000 per smoker.2 Smokers make up 4 out of 5 cases of lung cancer. It is one of the most preventable chronic diseases.

With Prevention, There Is Hope.

Victoria: A Real Story of Hope

Victoria is an overweight 50-year-old mother of three. She has a family history of diabetes. This is a typical day in Victoria’s life:

  • She takes care of her mother, a longtime diabetic who undergoes kidney dialysis 3 times per week. Her mother is also legally blind.
  • She injects her mother with insulin twice a day. This is a constant reminder of diabetes and the devastation it causes.
  • She observes how her mother refuses to fight, continuing to eat generous portions of food and smoking 3 packs of cigarettes per day.
  • She is a chain smoker and compulsive eater herself. She knows she is headed down a similar path if she doesn’t make serious changes in her own lifestyle habits and choices.

Now, 3 months after taking action with better lifestyle choices, Victoria has made big changes by:

  • Working her way up to 30 minutes of walking per day.
  • Entering a program at work to help her stop smoking.
  • Attending regular weight management meetings at lunch.
  • Losing 10 pounds.
  • Decreasing her cholesterol levels by 10%, helping her to avoid other chronic diseases like heart disease.

Victoria has much improved her quality of life in other ways too:

  • She is motivated and encouraged to continue on her path to better health.
  • She has more energy.
  • She feels better able to handle stress in her work and family life.
  • She is setting a good example for her children, who are also overweight.

Now the family shares walks, healthier dinners, and more quality time together. With these small changes, Victoria has made a big step in beating the odds of diabetes and other chronic diseases. And, she’s passing it down to the next generation.

Did you know?

If 1 in 10 American adults started a regular walking program, the nation would save $5.6 billion in heart disease costs each year.4

References:

  1. Thorpe K, Florence CS, Howard DH, Trends: the impact of obesity on rising healthcare costs. Health Affairs, October 20, 2004.
  2. Department of Health and Human Services. The Health Consequences of Smoking: what it means to you. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2004. Available at http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/sgr_2004/00_pdfs/SGR2004
    _Whatitmeanstoyou.pdf    . Accessed October 3, 2007
  3. Weight-control Information Network. Statistics Related to Overweight and Obesity. Bethesda, MD: Weight-control Information Network, 2007. Available at http://win.niddk.nih.gov/statistics/index.htm. Accessed May 18, 2007.
  4. National Governors Association. Healthy Aging and States: Making Wellness the Rule, Not the Exception. Washington, DC: NGA, 2007. Available at http://www.subnet.nga.org/ci/1-aging.html. Accessed September 20>, 2007.
  5. Vaccination coverage among U.S. adults. National Immunization Survey – Adult, 2007.