[Personal responsibility--prevention].

The multifarious structural web of modern health systems is endangered by political pressure, which leads to changing priorities and this renders it difficult, if not impossible to formulate an appropriate and long-term health-policy. Particular risk factors are isolated from the complex connections and used as guidelines for prevention and sanction-measures. Considering the rising multimorbidity we should rather speak of risk indicators. There is an urgent need for scientific observation and foundation of preventive measures to minimise, or if possible stop, misinterpretations of data from short-term health research. Comprehensive health research is non-existent, responsibilities being unsettled and the necessity of long-term thinking has not been realised so far. Therefore, epidemiological studies considering pathogenetic and salutogenetic aspects to the same extent, are mandatory.