Why focus on preventative health?
The essence of preventative health is a shift from curative care to preventative care and wellness services. Our vision is to empower people to take responsibility for their own health and make healthy lifestyle choices. This includes health promotion and wellness interventions and services that educate people, encourage and empower them to adopt healthy behaviors that reduce their exposure to disease risk factors.
Preventative services also focus on early detection of risk factors and screening for chronic diseases. Our preventative health model of care includes services and practices that aim to protect people's health by appropriate immunization; preventing transmission of communicable diseases and infections; reducing multidrug resistant infections, and managing outbreaks and epidemics.
Where are we now?
The prevalence of non-communicable diseases, and associated risk factors in Qatar is high. Over 70 percent of Qatari adults are overweight, and premature death from NCDs is amongst the highest in the world. In 2015, 6.3 percent of deaths in Qatar were as a result of communicable diseases, which are largely preventable.
PHCC has established a range of services focusing on the promotion of health, and the prevention of illness and disease. We have invested in the infrastructure in new Health and Wellness Centers to support our communities towards healthier lives.
Our goals for 2023
Expand targeted wellness programs, improving physical activity and healthy behaviors among youth and adults:
- Support people to improve their health literacy, and support behavior change, such as to quit smoking
- Use mobile technology and social media to encourage healthy lifestyles
- Develop wellness services for our key populations, mothers and newborn babies children and adolescents
Provide early detection and screening
- Expand our national screening programs for cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease
- Extend screening to school children and adolescents, supported with education on healthy habit
Ensure health protection and communicable disease prevention
- Standardize and improve the surveillance and outbreak management of multi-drug resistant organisms and infectious diseases
Implement control and prevention programs for communicable diseases, and deliver immunization programs for vaccine preventable diseases