An Integrated Conceptual Framework Illustrating the Overlap Between Public Health, Community Medicine, and Preventive Medicine Across the Health System.

Abstract

Prevention is a core function of health systems, yet the conceptual relationships among prevention-oriented disciplines are not always clearly articulated. Public health, community medicine, and preventive medicine share common preventive goals but differ in scope, level of action, and proximity to clinical practice. This lack of conceptual clarity may affect education, training pathways, and shared understanding of preventive functions across health systems. This article presents an integrated conceptual framework that illustrates how preventive action is distributed across the health system, highlighting areas of overlap among public health, community medicine, and preventive medicine. The framework positions public health as an overarching domain encompassing policy and regulatory functions, population-based health services, and facility-based preventive services. Community medicine is situated within this domain with a stronger emphasis on applied prevention at population and facility levels. Preventive medicine is conceptualized as a multi-level discipline that aligns with population-based and facility-based prevention, while uniquely extending preventive action into direct clinical practice through clinical preventive services. The framework also emphasizes the bidirectional relationship between applied prevention and health policy, and clarifies the limited yet meaningful interface between clinical preventive services and curative care. By visualizing these relationships, the framework provides a conceptual and educational tool to support coherent understanding of prevention across population, community, facility, and clinical contexts.