Department of Business Administration2024-11-0920091435-246X10.1007/s10100-009-0094-22-s2.0-70350001766http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10100-009-0094-2https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14288/15251This paper discusses the problem of allocating time for prevention at the primary care level, focusing on a general practitioner (GP) practice. The basic trade-off is between improved state of the health of the population, which translates into less demand for the GP services, and a decreased capacity for curative services, which translates into increased congestion. The problem of how much time to devote to prevention is modeled as a non-linear optimization problem. As an extension of the problem, selection of preventive activities to perform among recommended alternatives is modeled using a knapsack formulation, and its application is illustrated with a numerical example.Operations researchManagement scienceJournal Article1613-91782691874000093353