These obstacles minimize the far reaching impact that strategic prevention practice can achieve. Limitations to Maximizing Prevention Practitioners trivialize prevention when they actualize it as a message conveyed by a doctor, in a brochure, or as a public service announcement. When prevention is practiced only as an education process, it does not adequately address the complexity of the problem. Human behavior is complicated and rarely responds to only a message, even if that message is in an individual's best interest and the individual knows it. The emphasis in prevention should not be placed on a message, but on a strategy.
Prevention is tangential when it is merely an add-on to treatment.
It is frequently viewed skeptically rather than as the center of efforts to promote well-being. Primary prevention expenditures are usually far less than their cost effectiveness justifies. They are based more on what fits into the treatment or medical model rather than what is known about effective prevention. Doctors add their teachable moment to exams, brochures are made available in the waiting room, or public service announcements are developed. Prevention has a demonstrated track record and can be made even more effective, but its practice must be central rather than tangential.