Prevention and screening · for people who are not ill

Thenextthirtyyears,
writtendown
inorder.

Three answers, and you get a calendar that runs decades forward. Every item carries the case against it as well as the case for.

Ninety seconds. No account, nothing stored off your device.

18

screenings, checks and vaccines

2 sides

for every single one

0

scare tactics

THE YEARS ARRIVE WHETHER YOU PLAN FOR THEM OR NOT
38Blood pressure, lipids, glucose
45Bowel screening begins
55Lung screening, if you ever smoked
65Aortic scan, once, ten minutes
70Bone density · pneumococcal
AND EVERY ONE OF THEM HAS SOMETHING WORTH DOING IN IT
THE HEADLINE, AND THEN THE PEOPLE
+0%is what the article says, and it is true
4
in 100 before
4.0
in 100 after
+0.0
the whole difference
WHAT THE BORING THINGS ACTUALLY BUY BACK
Stop smokingup to 10 years
Treat blood pressureup to 4 years
Move most daysup to 4 years
Attend the screeningup to 2 years
No scans you do not need, no supplements, no scare tactics. Three answers and a calendar that runs decades forward.

the instruments are below

the reader for every frightening headline

“A thirty per cent increase” is almost never what you think

Relative risk is a ratio. Absolute risk is people. Move both and watch how small most headlines actually are.

Baseline risk, per 100 people

4

The headline says risk rises by

30%

4

people in 100 before

5.2

people in 100 after

+1.2

the whole difference

A 30% rise on a baseline of 4 in 100 means about 1.2 more people in every hundred. That is the number that belongs in the headline, and it is the number that is almost always left out.

The moves that matter

Ranked by effect, not by fashion

Family history

What happened to them changes what applies to you

Tick anything that happened to a parent, brother or sister. Each one has a specific consequence, and most of them are never mentioned in a ten minute appointment.

What this changes for you

0

Nothing ticked. If genuinely nobody close to you has had any of these, that is itself worth knowing, and this section stays quiet.

One room, mostly questions that start with should I

Should I take the PSA test. Should I bother with the flu jab. Should I be worried about this headline. Answered by clinicians under their real names.

Opens with the full platform. Your alias already works here.

The honest part

Three things most prevention writing leaves out

No, and that is the honest part most health writing skips. Every test finds things that would never have harmed you, and finding them costs biopsies, operations, and years of anxiety. A good screening programme is one where the benefit clearly exceeds that cost for a defined group, which is why the ages and intervals are specific rather than generous.

Three answers, and the next thirty years arrive in order.