May 2001 • Volume 7 • Number 5
New preventive services recommendations hit the streets
Choosing which clinical preventive services to offer your patients isn't always an exact science. Should all men age 35 or older be screened for lipid disorders? What about routinely screening young, sexually active women for chlamydial infection?
If you're uncertain about the benefit of these and other clinical interventions, new recommendations recently released by the third U.S. Preventive Services Task Force can help in the decision-making process.
The April supplement to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine carries the first four of numerous new USPSTF recommendations to be published over the next few years. You can also go to http://www.ahrq.gov/clinic/prevnew.htm to view them.
These initial recommendations cover skin cancer screening, screening pregnant women for bacterial vaginosis, screening for lipid disorders in adults and screening for chlamydial infection. The recommendations are based on systematic reviews of the available clinical evidence conducted by investigators at two evidence-based practice centers sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. In addition, the scope of work of this third task force was expanded to include cost-benefit analyses for selected interventions.
The AAFP provided peer review for the recommendations and maintains a liaison to the task force. The AAFP Commission on Clinical Policies and Research will review the USPSTF evidence reports and recommendations to see what changes it might recommend in AAFP policy. The USPSTF is chaired by FP Alfred Berg, M.D., M.P.H., of Seattle. Other Academy members on the task force are Steven Woolf, M.D., M.P.H., of Fairfax, Va., and Paul Frame, M.D., of Cohocton, N.Y.
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department.
Copyright © 2001 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
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