What is the difference between preventive care and physical examination?

Many people always think that a physical examination is health prevention, and they even equate physical examination with preventive health care. In fact, the core difference between the two is that the core goal of a physical examination is to "check for existing diseases" and find abnormalities that have already appeared in your body and meet clinical diagnostic standards, while the core goal of preventive health care is to "prevent disease before it occurs." It focuses on early intervention at risk points that have not reached the disease threshold to help you maintain a better physical condition.

Last week I met a 27-year-old girl who works as a graphic designer at a community health center. Her annual physical examination reports are all green. As a result, she has suffered from heart palpitations and insomnia for half a month, and her hair has almost doubled in width. When I came for an evaluation, I found that her cortisol level has reached the upper limit of the normal range, her heart rate variability is far lower than the average for the same age group, and she also has hidden iron deficiency. These indicators are subject to routine physical examinations. As long as it does not exceed the critical value, it will not be marked as abnormal, and naturally there will be no follow-up intervention suggestions. However, in the logic of preventive health care, these are risk signals that have turned on the yellow light. You must quickly adjust your work and rest, diet structure, and supplement nutrients to bring the state back. Otherwise, if you delay for another six months, you may find anemia, thyroid dysfunction, and other problems that can really be screened out by physical examination.

Of course, there are different voices in the industry now. Many experts in the field of public health believe that a broad physical examination itself should include the pre-evaluation link of preventive care. There is no need to completely separate the two. However, in actual scenarios, most of the routine physical examinations we have access to are essentially "disease screening tools". The service link is basically over when the specific examination report is issued. There will be no personalized adjustment plan for your "sub-health" state between health and disease, let alone long-term health tracking.

Speaking of which, the difference between the two is a bit like managing and protecting fruit trees. A physical examination is equivalent to using a detector to check whether the fruits are infected with insects or rotten one by one. If the fruits are found to be damaged, pick them out. However, preventive health care usually focuses on soil fertility, air humidity, and sunlight duration, and prevents insects and supplements fertilizers in advance, so that there is no chance of insects growing on the fruits, and the fruits can even bear fuller fruits. I have been working in primary health services for almost 7 years. I have seen too many people stay up late and drink heavily with normal physical examination reports. I have also seen many people panic after being diagnosed with nodules and high blood pressure. In turn, they ask me how to prevent the problem from getting worse. In fact, if you start daily preventive health care early, you often don’t have to wait for the physical examination to give you a red light before you panic.