Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 1999 Dec 11;319(7224):1562-5.
doi: 10.1136/bmj.319.7224.1562.

When can a risk factor be used as a worthwhile screening test?

N J Wald  1 , A K Hackshaw, C D Frost
Affiliations
Review

When can a risk factor be used as a worthwhile screening test?

N J Wald et al. BMJ. .
No abstract available

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Dose-response relation between incidence of a disorder and levels of a risk factor where the relative odds for people in the highest fifth of the risk factor distribution compared with people in the lowest fifth (ROQ1-5)=5 ((50:950)÷(10:990))
Figure 2
Figure 2
Overlapping relative frequency distributions in affected and unaffected individuals where the detection rate for a false positive rate of 5% is 25% (DR5=25%). The implicit vertical axis describes the percentages of affected and unaffected individuals according to the screening variable
Figure 3
Figure 3
Relation between detection rate for 5% false positive rate (DR5) (top) and relative odds between lowest and highest fifth for unaffected individuals (ROQ1-5) (bottom). Both distributions are identical, with equal SDs, but the means are 1.4 SDs apart
Figure 4
Figure 4
Distribution of maternal serum α fetoprotein in pregnancies affected and unaffected by open spina bifida (derived from Wald et al2) and distribution of serum cholesterol in men who did and did not die of ischaemic heart disease (derived from Wald et al1)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Wald NJ, Law M, Watt H, Wu T, Bailey A, Johnson M, et al. Apolipoproteins and ischaemic heart disease: Implications for screening. Lancet. 1994;343:75–79. - PubMed
    1. Wald NJ, Cuckle HS, Densem JW, Kennard A, Smith D. Maternal serum screening for Down's syndrome: the effect of routine ultrasound scan determination of gestational age and adjustment for maternal weight. Br J Obstet Gynaecol. 1992;99:144–149. - PubMed
    1. Wald NJ, Kennard A. Prenatal screening for neural tube defects and Down's syndrome. In: Rimoin DL, Connor JM, Pyeritz RE, editors. Emery and Rimoin's principles and practice of medical genetics. 3rd ed. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone; 1996. pp. 545–562.