During my semester abroad in Copenhagen, I had the opportunity to work on an independent project related to comparative healthcare. As part of my program with DIS Scandinavia, I took a core course on Comparative Healthcare, which involved traveling to health clinics in Denmark, Estonia, and Finland. During these visits, I had the chance to talk to members of these communities and learn about the approaches they were taking to make healthcare more accessible and beneficial.

For this project, I collaborated with two of my peers to create a research paper titled “A Comparative Approach to Prevention in Denmark and the United States.” Our focus was to explore how prevention is conceptualized and operationalized in both countries. From this paper we created a poster that summarized our work which we presented and defended to our peers and professor.

In our work we used various reputable sources like peer-reviewed journal articles and government publications, as well as search engines like Google Scholar, to investigate the different public health prevention strategies employed by Denmark and the United States. We used specific search terms to find information on STI, smoking, and suicide prevention efforts in both countries and selected articles based on relevance, peer-review, and publication date within the last 17 years. They excluded articles published before 2005.

Our paper highlighted the importance of prevention as a critical aspect of healthcare that aims to prevent health problems from arising. Prevention is an essential strategy at both individual and community levels. We also found that both the United States and Denmark invest in prevention as a public health strategy, targeting high-priority health issues such as STIs, smoking, and suicide.

I found that both Denmark and the United States have implemented measures to prevent smoking and tobacco use, including changing the legal age to purchase cigarettes and implementing smoking bans in public places. However, Denmark has a goal of creating a smoke-free generation by 2030, while the United States has not officially stated a similar objective. Denmark's prevention strategy is more centralized and focuses on

non-conventional education, media and digital programs, targeted interventions, legislation, and means restriction. In contrast, the United States focuses on school-based education programs, legislation, and targeted interventions, with a more decentralized approach.

However, we also identified areas where both countries could incorporate more community-based planning and inclusive legislation in their prevention strategies to maximize reach and efficacy. For instance, Denmark could consider involving more community-based organizations in the design and implementation of their prevention programs. Similarly, the United States could benefit from more inclusive policies that take into account the needs of diverse populations.

Our paper also highlighted areas for future investigation based on the results of our research. Firstly, the efficacy of technologically-advanced prevention methods such as MINPLAN should be assessed to better understand the future of digital prevention. Secondly, researchers should investigate the effects of mediating factors such as advertising, culture, and social pressure on prevention efforts.

In conclusion, considering priority-setting and healthcare spending, prevention is an area of high importance. Prevention is “highly cost-saving,” meaning governments around the world can save billions by investing in the prevention strategies employed by Denmark and the United States. Additionally, there is ample room for creative solutions within the prevention sphere. As such, governments should allocate resources to designing and implementing innovative prevention programs that take into account the needs of diverse populations.

Campus, B., Fafarf, P., St. Pierre, J., Hoffman, S.J., 2021. Comparing the Regulation and Incentivization of e-Cigarrettes across 97 Countries. Social Science and Medicine, [e-journal] 291. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114187

Strassman A, Çolak Y, Serra-Burriel M, Nordestagaard, B.G., Turk, A., Afzal, S., Puhan, M.A., 2022. Nationwide Indoor Smoking Ban and Impact on Smoking Behaviour and Lung Function: a Two-Population Natural Experiment. Thorax, [e-journal] pp. 1-7. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1136/thoraxjnl-2021-218436.