The Role of Protective Factors

Abstract

The term “risk factor” appeared for the first time in a Framingham publication 20 years ago. The expression “protective factor” hung, as it were, in the air ever since it was debated whether physical activity protects against coronary heart disease. However, it gained wide use only after the inverse relationship between coronary heart disease risk and high-density lipoportein (HDL) was rediscovered around 1975. It may be questioned if the division between risk and protective factors is fortunate. It makes little difference whether one talks about physical inactivity as a risk factor or physical activity as a protective factor. Similarly, a low low-density lipoprotein (LDL) level is as much of a protective factor as a high HDL level! There ist, nevertheless, a psychological advantage to the term “protective factor” from the preventive point of view since people may be more ready to do something positive to protect their health than something, as they see it, negative (i.e. give up something) to avoid risk.