After completing this module, students will be able to:

1. Employ the concepts of primary and secondary prevention as they relate to common clinical preventive services
2. Describe the appropriate conditions for screening in terms of characteristics of the disease, the patient and the screening test
3. Describe the appropriate study design to evaluate the effectiveness of a screening program and discuss the common biases encountered in screening program research
4. Calculate the characteristics of diagnostic tests: sensitivity, specificity and positive and negative predictive values
5. Evaluate screening tests in terms of their validity, results and generalizability
6. Evaluate locally obtained survey data about screening rates and attitudes and devise a community response to promote a screening program

Class Lecture Materials

PowerPoint    |    Transcript [pdf]

APTR members who are logged-in will be able to access the following information at the end of this page. 

Supplemental Materials

Case Study

This preventive medicine teaching case discusses the concepts of screening, prevention, and diagnostic test evaluation using the example of colorectal cancer. Features of the case include a health policy exercise concerning community screening programs and an exercise in clinical prevention decision‐making.  

• A Critical Look at Prevention: Colorectal Cancer Screening – Student Guide (PDF) 
• Instructor Guide: A Critical Look at Prevention: Colorectal Cancer Screening 

Discussion Vignettes

• Breast Cancer Discussion Vignette - Mammograms (PDF) 

Resources

• Screening – PowerPoint References (PDF) 
• Screening - Resources (PDF)