Kevin Lomangino is the managing editor of HealthNewsReview.org. He tweets as @KLomangino.
Hardly a day goes by without some media outlet making an impressive-sounding claim about the accuracy of a new medical test.
But as we repeatedly point out in our story reviews and blog posts, these messages often badly misrepresent what these tests are actually capable of, how they might perform in real-world situations, and how they might cause harm.
How can journalists and the public improve their understanding of medical tests and evaluate these claims more effectively?
We can start by getting a handle on some basic concepts in medical testing: sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive value.
These concepts are crucial to understanding how often a test will correctly identify people with disease and how often it will miss them.
Just as important, they help clarify how often a test will generate a false-positive result — which can cause anxiety and lead to costly and invasive follow-up tests and procedures.
Unlike many news story headlines, I’m not going to pretend that medical tests are “simple” to understand.
But in a new addition to our toolkit published today, I brought in lots of case studies and examples that help illustrate core testing concepts–such as the difference between diagnosis and screening–and show why they are important.
CLICK HERE to read the new primer.
I think some readers will come away shocked at the woefully superficial and inaccurate manner in which many news stories communicate about medical tests.
This primer provides some resources–and hopefully some inspiration–to do better.
Opinions on other issues in news, journals, PR, advertising, marketing
@HealthNewsRevu "There’s no harm in trying to make a buck, per se. But there is harm in promoting things that are not backed up by evidence, and in converting normal states of health into sickness" https://t.co/aeUTK4CVAs
Men’s Health Month: "Some of it was thinly-veiled, profit-driven fear-mongering," says @garyschwitzer: https://t.co/MOWdxlenvz
Comments
Please note, comments are no longer published through this website. All previously made comments are still archived and available for viewing through select posts.
Comments are closed.
Our Comments Policy
But before leaving a comment, please review these notes about our policy.
You are responsible for any comments you leave on this site.
This site is primarily a forum for discussion about the quality (or lack thereof) in journalism or other media messages (advertising, marketing, public relations, medical journals, etc.) It is not intended to be a forum for definitive discussions about medicine or science.
We will delete comments that include personal attacks, unfounded allegations, unverified claims, product pitches, profanity or any from anyone who does not list a full name and a functioning email address. We will also end any thread of repetitive comments. We don”t give medical advice so we won”t respond to questions asking for it.
We don”t have sufficient staffing to contact each commenter who left such a message. If you have a question about why your comment was edited or removed, you can email us at feedback@healthnewsreview.org.
There has been a recent burst of attention to troubles with many comments left on science and science news/communication websites. Read “Online science comments: trolls, trash and treasure.”
The authors of the Retraction Watch comments policy urge commenters:
We”re also concerned about anonymous comments. We ask that all commenters leave their full name and provide an actual email address in case we feel we need to contact them. We may delete any comment left by someone who does not leave their name and a legitimate email address.
And, as noted, product pitches of any sort – pushing treatments, tests, products, procedures, physicians, medical centers, books, websites – are likely to be deleted. We don”t accept advertising on this site and are not going to give it away free.
The ability to leave comments expires after a certain period of time. So you may find that you’re unable to leave a comment on an article that is more than a few months old.
You might also like