Public expectations about screening don’t always match what screening programmes can deliver. Magazines and online discussions carry many personal stories of people who believe they were saved, especially by cancer screening, and of people who might have died because of a lack of screening. Letters to newspapers complain that screening programmes are dictated purely by financial calculations. Confusingly, another group of stories protest about the failure of screening to detect a friend’s or a relative’s disease. Amidst all this, the specific benefits of screening programmes and the sensitive calculation of these against possible harm have been largely lost from public view.
This guide was produced by Sense About Science in collaboration with The Association for Clinical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine, the Institute of Biomedical Science and The Royal College of Pathologists. New edition printed in 2015 with support from The Royal College of Pathologists and the Institute of Biomedical Science. Published: 3 July 2015
To read the summary and download Making Sense of Screening, click here.
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