Rationale
Intangible prevention and treatment practices have existed for a long time: Hippocratic doctrine already recommended dietary adjustments and exercise.
The term NPI is used by most health authorities worldwide.
Here is a non-exhaustive list using the term NPI in an official report:
A need for clarification
Their role has become complex to grasp due to their diversification, the proliferation of stakeholders, and the proliferation of information and misinformation channels. Their evolution is necessitated by the transformations of health problems linked to societal changes and advances in biotechnology. The term "NPI" preferred by health authorities should be reserved for well-defined prevention, care, and autonomy support protocols, i.e., those that are described, explainable, effective, safe, and implementable. This requires semantic attention and a scientific framework to distinguish science-based services aimed at treating a specific health problem recognized by conventional medicine from occupational practices (lifestyle, work, sociocultural activity, spiritual practice, etc.). In this sense, the NPIS Model does not restrict an individual's freedom to choose their lifestyle.
In this sense, the NPIS Model does not restrict an individual's freedom to choose their lifestyle. In other words, an NPI is a one-time health solution supervised by at least one healthcare professional. It will have been decided upon consciously and in consultation by a user and their physician or multidisciplinary healthcare team. This solution, supervised over a defined period of time, therefore has nothing to do with all the socio-cultural activities left to the individual's freedom, as indicated in the diagram below.
Paradoxically lagging behind research
Research on NPI is significantly lacking compared to biomedical treatments. To see this, simply search Pubmed, the leading database of medical and scientific articles.
Below are the results obtained from a query performed on June 26, 2025.
RESULTS OBTAINED: QUERY PERFORMED ON JUNE 26, 2025
