We analyse participation in medical prevention with an expected utility model that is sufficiently rich to capture diverging features of different prevention procedures. We distinguish primary and secondary prevention (with one or two rounds) for either fatal or non-fatal diseases. Moreover, we introduce a flexible relationship between the specific disease for which the prevention procedure is set up and the general background health of the individual. We show how these various possibilities change the comparative statics of the prevention decision and we test the differential predictions with data from SHARE (Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe) about participation in mammography, dental caries screening and vaccination.