What type of prevention is a government health campaign promoting low-fat products and low salt intake to prevent hypertension and diabetes?

Primordial Prevention

This government health campaign promoting low-fat products and low salt intake to prevent hypertension and diabetes represents primordial prevention (Answer A).

Understanding the Prevention Hierarchy

Primordial Prevention

Primordial prevention targets entire populations or communities to prevent the development of risk factors themselves, rather than treating established risk factors. 1 This approach addresses social conditions, health behaviors, and dietary patterns before risk factors like hypertension or diabetes ever develop. 1

• Programs that address diet patterns with high-fat/high-salt content specifically aim to prevent the emergence of hypertension, heart disease, obesity, and stroke at the population level 1
• This represents a paradigm shift toward integrating resources and policies that target broader at-risk populations before disease risk factors manifest 1
• The goal is to inhibit health risk factors and subsequently prevent chronic disease in selected or whole communities 1

Why This Campaign is Primordial, Not Primary Prevention

Primary prevention differs fundamentally because it addresses established risk factors in individuals who already have them. 1 Primary prevention includes:

• Population-directed strategies targeting individuals with specific existing risks 1
• Prescribing antihypertensives for patients who already have high blood pressure 1
• Prescribing aspirin for patients with existing stroke risk factors 1

The key distinction: Primary prevention treats people who already have hypertension or diabetes risk factors, while primordial prevention stops those risk factors from developing in the first place. 1

The Evidence for Dietary Interventions in Prevention

Population-Level Dietary Modification

• Reducing dietary sodium intake is identified as a highly cost-effective means for preventing hypertension and cardiovascular diseases, not just treating them 1
• Sodium reduction is listed as a "best-buy intervention" by the WHO for population-wide prevention efforts 1
• Multiple countries have implemented sodium reduction campaigns including consumer education and food labeling—classic primordial prevention strategies 1

The Biological Rationale

• Current global sodium intake averages 4.3 g/day (10.8 g/day of table salt), vastly exceeding the estimated 0.5 g/day consumed during human evolution 1
• Programs addressing foods with high-fat/high-salt content target the risk for developing hypertension, heart disease, obesity, and stroke from fetal development to older age 1
• Dietary changes can lower blood pressure and prevent hypertension in nonhypertensive individuals 1

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

Do not confuse population-level health campaigns with individual clinical interventions. The government campaign described operates at the community/population level to prevent risk factor emergence, which definitively places it in the primordial prevention category. 1

Secondary prevention (Answer C) would involve screening and early detection of existing disease (e.g., blood pressure screening programs to detect undiagnosed hypertension), while tertiary prevention (Answer D) focuses on managing established disease to prevent complications (e.g., intensive blood pressure control in patients with diagnosed hypertension to prevent stroke). 1