Why don't we fund more prevention?

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” (Benjiamin Franklin)

Covid19 surely attracted our attention to prevention importance in the Public Health sector. Almost every Country worldwide is still struggling to keep the pandemic at bay, and many hard restrictions had to be enforced due to the lack of a first aid protective net capable of mitigating Covid19 early effects.

Usually regarded as a cost rather than an investment, planning prevention is pivotal for the management of any organization, whether in public or private sector, and even for each individual being. Most of us simply lack in education towards prevention importance, which we usually tend to disregard and dismiss as something "we do not need right now". This is a clear consequence of today's "accelerated" world (cfr. Asor Rosa's ISBN 9788806226626), where our necessity to live "hic et nunc", in a quickly evolving society, leads us to lose long-term perspective and urges us to maximize today's results.

Prevention, though, is closely connected to quality. We may also say that good quality is prevention's output. Uncertainty about future developments and challenges may be discouraging, but we have plenty of means and instruments to make reliable forecasts about possible outcomes. And yet we often choose to ignore hints and early warning signs. If we deem accountable for our actions, prevention is part of the equation.

The reality is that we cannot afford any more to ignore prevention, as its cost would simply be too high. Covid19 painstakingly shows us. In any business we may run, poor quality's cost is definitely higher than investing in prevention, human resources, and thus good quality.

Prevention and accountability

go along together

In the business of packaging, my business, good quality translates both to products and processes. Not only we strive to cater the best-in-class sustainable packaging to the market, but our goal is also to achive excellence in all company processes, from manufacturing to marketing, constantly keeping in mind that customers rule the world (cfr. among others Peter F. Drucker ISBN 8845311899), and their (our...) expectations grow constantly higher.

We must all be more aware of prevention importance, and start acting now. For a start, we would be better citizens, and better humans.