Focus on Primary Prevention: A European Example of Prevention Strategies in the Digital Era

Abstract

The era of communication we’re living has shrunk the world to a global village: digital reality is characterized by a constant stream of knowledge, and Internet articles are predominating over newspapers, radio and television. Therefore, for non-professionals, building a robust expertise on the access to information technologies and knowing how to discern between real and fake news, are contemporary and controversial issues. In this confusing scenario, the importance of educating general public to prevention is unequivocal and can be considered an ethical mission at all levels: either as primary prevention initiatives on healthy lifestyles or as secondary ones as well, promoting adherence to the screening programs. For Patient Organizations, communication facilities represent a golden opportunity to become promulgators of correct information: a beacon of positivism in the darkness of a new digital middle ages.