Challenges to preventive medicine in the last quarter of the 20th century.

The challenges to preventive medicine in the next quarter century are as great as the opportunities they present. As a first step we need to agree that, despite the importance of improving medical care, our first priority must be the prevention of illness. On this basis we should proceed to formulate specific goals and means to achieve those goals. This task seems reasonably divisible into two categories: (1) the application of existing knowledge and the evaluation of those applications; and (2) the needs for new knowledge and new programs.