ABSTRACT
The purpose of screening is to identify people in an apparently healthy population who are at higher risk of a health problem, so that an early treatment or intervention can be offered in order to lead to better health outcomes in those screened. However, a number of issues should be appraised before embarking on screening asymptomatic individuals, such as ensuring that the condition sought is an important and frequent health problem, a screening test exists and is reliable with high sensitivity and specificity and low false-negative and false-positive cases, and there is a cost-effective and affordable treatment for those tested positive, etc. The chapter describes criteria for identifying a disease suitable for screening, for developing screening policies, including organized screening programmes targeting an entire population group, opportunistic screening and health checks for the identification of individuals at risk of or with NCDs. The chapter also provides an example of a framework for the prevention of NCDs at the primary care level and a list of screening and health checks that are consistent with the WHO best buys and other interventions for NCD conditions.
