There is evidence to be inferred from statistics about health status and mortality rates that a large proportion of illness and premature death is preventable. Primary prevention programmes appear to have had only limited success when individuals need to take responsibility for preserving their own health. This paper examines the concept of primary prevention and its assumptions, including the need to increase the sense of personal power of individuals. It also deals with some of the problems for primary prevention policies and their implementation. Other primary prevention issues such as ethical and legal considerations. cost‐benefits, foci of programmes, and the specification of goals and objectives, are considered. We propose public (government) policies to broaden the concept of health sciences for research and practice, and to give a high priority for resource allocation to prevention of illness and promotion of health, including funding of interdisciplinary research teams. We advocate taking a general systems theory approach to prevention, while enhancing and developing the sense of personal power of individual members of social system