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Foreword
CDC, the nation’s prevention agency, collaborates with its partners
to prevent disease, death, and disability. Through prevention, lives can
be saved, quality of life improved, and the burden of health-care costs
reduced. Prevention research helps us to understand conditions and
diseases and who they affect, develop and implement effective strategies
and programs to reduce disease and promote health, and develop policies
and recommendations that strengthen systems and programs at local, state,
and national levels.
This publication focuses on birth defects and human immunodeficiency
virus infection/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), two
preventable causes of death and disability. The articles focus on programs
in several states that are designed to reduce disease and assess disease
trends. The primary messages are not new, but need to be reinforced.
Periconceptional intake of 0.4 mg of the B vitamin folic acid
reduces the risk for neural tube defects 50%--70%.
Zidovudine has been used successfully to reduce perinatal
transmission of HIV infection.
The use of surveillance systems and classification models can help
states analyze and interpret HIV/AIDS trends, as well as plan
prevention and other program services to address important public
health problems.
Science-based prevention efforts must be communicated in a timely and
effective manner, whether to a woman making a decision for herself or
others, to a health-care professional making decisions regarding patient
care, or to a researcher classifying new cases of HIV/AIDS. Communication
plays a key role in prevention; this publication communicates public
health recommendations that reflect recent research affecting the health
of women. Prevention means staying healthy and living well, and prevention
works for women.
Yvonne Green
Associate Director
Office of Women’s Health
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