Eh... in the small scale. On the net, preventative stuff -- therapists physical and not, GPs, etc., as mentioned) -- is freakishly more effective in terms of overall benefit. Forget the exact numbers, but the whole ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure (i.e. 16x more effective) thing isn't that hyperbolic, from what I can recall. The GP that catches a tumor before it turns malignant helps a lot more, with much fewer downsides and risks, than the specialized surgeon that removes a late stage one. The therapist that keeps someone in the right sort of shape to prevent surgery being necessary doing a fair bit more good. So on, so forth.
I'm not sure I'd agree with the principle in regards to military conflict -- long term low intensity can easily damage a society (economically and otherwise) worse than short term high intensity (I.e. "flashy") and is often more likely to cause regional rather than country specific issues -- but for medical, emergency services in general (firefighting, law enforcement, etc.), stuff like that, with zero doubt a long term program, particularly those prevention focused, is more effective by pretty much any metric than something focused on reactive, put-out-fires type stuff. Not that the latter isn't still important, it's just significantly worse at reducing harm et al on the net.