What is the relationship between preventive health care and physical examination

To put it simply, physical examination is the core screening entrance in the preventive health care system, but it is far from being equated with preventive health care. The two are mutually dependent and connected.

Currently, it is quite common for people to have misconceptions about the relationship between the two. Some people think that doing an annual physical examination is equivalent to doing a good job in preventive care throughout the year. They dare to stay up late and eat heavy oil and salt after receiving a report that there are no major problems. Others think that routine physical examinations cannot reveal any serious diseases and are a waste of money. It is better to spend all the budget on health supplements and physical therapy projects. Both of these views are actually extreme.

When I helped follow up on chronic diseases at a grassroots public health center in the past two years, I encountered two particularly typical examples: Xiao Zhou, who works as an Internet designer, went through a full set of physical examinations with his unit every year. His blood lipids were stuck at a critical high value for three consecutive years. It took a stent to save her; there is also a retired Aunt Wang who follows the health group to do diet therapy and meridian exercises every day. She thinks that her daily health care is impeccable. She refused to come to the free elderly physical examination organized by the community three times. At the end of last year, she was so dizzy that she could not stand. When she went to the hospital, she found that her hypertension had reached level three and she also had early kidney damage. If she had detected abnormal blood pressure during the physical examination half a year earlier, she would not have reached this point if she took antihypertensive drugs on time.

To use an inappropriate analogy, if preventive health care is compared to year-round health maintenance for the body, then a physical examination is equivalent to a regular system vulnerability scan. If you don’t patch the detected vulnerabilities in time, most of the meaning of the scan will be lost; conversely, you clean the system cache and optimize background operations every day, but never bother to scan for hidden deep vulnerabilities. If the system suddenly crashes one day, you will not know where the problem lies.

In fact, if we look at the three-level prevention system of public health, the boundaries and connections between the two will be clearer: dietary adjustment, exercise intervention, and vaccination in primary prevention are all core contents of preventive health care. When it comes to early detection and early diagnosis in secondary prevention, physical examination is the most universal and efficient method. Chronic disease management and early intervention after the problem is detected, as well as postoperative rehabilitation, and complication prevention and control in the third-level prevention, also belong to the category of preventive health care. To put it bluntly, physical examination is a guide to follow-up preventive care, and preventive care is the ultimate destination of the value of physical examination.

When we do science popularization for community residents, we often say, don’t use the physical examination report as an “annual health certificate”, and don’t use daily health care as a “death-free gold medal.” Only by combining the two can you really take your health into your own hands.