Title: Tertiary prevention
Course: Health Education, Advocacy and Community Mobilisation Part 1 - Ethiopia (Full)

Tertiary prevention

Tertiary prevention — those preventive measures aimed at rehabilitation following significant illness. At this level Health Extension Practitioners can work to retrain, re-educate and rehabilitate people who have already developed an impairment or disability.

Read the list of the three levels of prevention again. Think about your experience of health education, whether as an educator or recipient of health education. How do you think health education can help with the prevention of disease? Do you think it will operate at all these levels? Note an example of possible health education interventions at each level where you think health education can be applied.

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Health Education can be applied at all three levels of disease prevention and can be of great help in maximising the gains from preventive behaviour. For example at the primary prevention level — you could educate people to practice some of the preventive behaviours, such as having a balanced diet so that they can protect themselves from developing diseases in the future. At the secondary level, you could educate people to visit their local health centre when they experience symptoms of illness, such as fever, so they can get early treatment for their health problems. At the tertiary level, you could educate people to take their medication appropriately and find ways of working towards rehabilitation from significant illness or disability.