Investing in Health and Wellbeing

The proverbial benefits of prevention over cure are self-evident and yet we are reluctant to invest in protecting and improving our health. Resolution of this age-old dilemma begins with a timeless truth: the benefits of good health come at a cost; prevention is not better than cure at any price. Protecting health should be appealing when a high-risk, high-value hazard can be averted rapidly, with certainty, and at relatively low cost. Similar reasoning applies when the goal is to make health gains, not merely to avoid health losses. Health choices are rational, based on values that are personal. Investing in Health and Wellbeing: When Prevention Is Better than Cure, Second Edition provides a framework to promote and protect health as an asset, illustrating the principles with practical examples. Application of these ideas helps to explain why prevention is a low priority for health services, why the world was not ready for the COVID-19 pandemic, why deadly infections like tuberculosis are neglected, why cigarette smoking is still commonplace, why billions still do not have access to safe sanitation, and why the response to climate change has been so slow. Much more money and effort are invested in health promotion and disease prevention today than is commonly thought, but the enormous avoidable burden of illness is reason to look for ways of investing still more. Previously published as The Great Health Dilemma (ISBN: 9780198853824) in 2021, this second, updated edition makes prevention part of a broader vision for better health. This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

Christopher Dye is currently Professor of Epidemiology at Oxford University where he is working to make a stronger case for investing in health. He is a Fellow of The UK Royal Society, the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal Society of Biology. Chris began professional life as a biologist and ecologist (BA York 1978) but postgraduate research on mosquitoes (DPhil Oxford 1982) led to a career in epidemiology and public health. Based at Imperial College and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine from 1982-96, he carried out research on bloodsucking insects in Africa, Asia and South America. In 1996, he joined the World Health Organization where he developed ways of analyzing the vast quantities of data, collected by government health departments worldwide. As WHO Director of Strategy 2014-18, he served as science advisor to the Director General. From 2006-09, he was also Gresham Professor of Physic (and other biological sciences).

- 1: History: the art is long - 2: Principles: the wisdom of foresight - 3: Preventive care: an affordable dream? - 4: Epidemics: unlikely disasters - 5: Endemic infections: normal ways to die - 6: Chronic diseases: the burden of choice - 7: Sanitation: the culture of conveniences - 8: Climate change: a healthy price for carbon - 9: Future positive: the conditions for health