The Goal of Prevention

The goal of prevention is... nothing. Not to have a terrorist attack; not to have a heart attack; not to have a problem. So how do we know if prevention strategies work? Maybe time alone accomplished the goal?

Laboratory experiments control for the "time alone" factor by having waiting lists of people who receive no intervention. They also randomize the sample population in order to ensure that the results apply to as many different people as possible. Finally, the best experiments use a "double-blind" procedure whereby even the experimenters do not know who is receiving treatment and who is not.

Real life, however, is not the lab. We want to treat as many people as possible to alleviate and prevent suffering. We do not randomize our treatments but rather treat all of the candidates who seek help. We do not know for sure if our intervention is what caused the improvement or prevented future pain. We leave that question to the scientists.

Instead we look at life as a series of opportunities. When someone steps forward there is an opportunity to make a change. If they're falling, we can help pick them up; if they're going too fast, we can help them slow down. There are many possible ways that we can act to make a difference in someone's life.

With G-d's help, we will not see what we saw at the beginning.