Advantages and Disadvantages of Screening

Screening is part of health promotion programs. Screening has a lot of advantages and positive outcomes. However, it can also have disadvantages. Screening is important for high-risk populations. Minorities are at higher risk of acquiring high-mortality diseases due to health inequality, being uninsured, low income, low educational levels, and more. Therefore, screening for high-mortality diseases is also essential. In the United States, it is imperative to screen for hypertension and diabetes, because they are the most common diseases. The USPSTF recommends hypertension screening in adults 18 or older (Krist et al., 2021). Hypertension is the silent killer, screening for it is a priority, and patients can present no symptoms and be hypertensive and not know it. Hypertension is a risk factor for heart failure, myocardial infarction, stroke, and chronic kidney disease (Krist et al., 2021). Hypertension can lead to chronic kidney disease which can lead to the patient needing dialysis treatments or death.

The main disadvantage of screening is that the money used to conduct screenings can be better used for treatment. Another big disadvantage of screening is false negative or false positive results that can cause harm to the patient. However, researchers will argue that the advantages win over the disadvantages. Since screening can prevent unnecessary treatment, it is also a good investment for the government to consider. Screening for STIs is also major and should be conducted more. STIs, if caught early, can be treated better and more quickly. Cancer screening is another important and primordial program that should be implemented. Cancer screening is by far the most important because cancer if undiagnosed or late diagnosed can be fatal. On the contrary, if cancer is promptly diagnosed by screening programs such as mammography, colonoscopy, prostate checkups, and more; treatment can start early and many lives can be saved.  There is an ethical imperative for the evaluation of cancer screening programs to ensure that their benefits outweigh any harm (Kalager & Bretthauer, 2020). Ensuring that screening programs are not harmful is extremely important. More research needs to be conducted to evaluate the harms of screening, and if the benefits outweigh it.

References

Kalager, M., & Bretthauer, M. (2020). Improving cancer screening programs. Science, 367(6474), 143–144. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aay3156

Krist, A. H., Davidson, K. W., Mangione, C. M., Cabana, M., Caughey, A. B., Davis, E. M., Donahue, K. E., Doubeni, C. A., Kubik, M., Li, L., Ogedegbe, G., Pbert, L., Silverstein, M., Stevermer, J., Tseng, C.-W., & Wong, J. B. (2021). Screening for hypertension in adults. JAMA, 325(16), 1650. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2021.4987