Also called: Screening tests
Important: This page is general information, not medical advice. It does not recommend or prescribe any treatment. Always consult your doctor or pharmacist before starting, stopping or changing any medicine.
About Health Screening
Screenings are tests that look for diseases before you have symptoms. Screening tests can find diseases early, when they're easier to treat. You can get some screenings in your doctor's office. Others need special equipment, so you may need to go to a different office or clinic.
Some conditions that doctors commonly screen for include:
- Breast cancer and cervical cancer in women
- Colorectal cancer
- Diabetes
- High blood pressure
- High cholesterol
- Osteoporosis
- Overweight and obesity
- Prostate cancer in men
Which tests you need depends on your age, your sex, your family history, and whether you have risk factors for certain diseases. After a screening test, ask when you will get the results and whom to talk to about them.
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
It sits within Wellness and Lifestyle.
When to speak to someone. Reading about a topic cannot tell you whether it applies to you. Speak to a doctor or pharmacist if symptoms are severe, sudden, getting worse, or simply not going away — and seek emergency care immediately for chest pain, breathing difficulty, sudden weakness or confusion, or a serious allergic reaction.
Research on Health Screening
6,364 studies areregistered for this condition on ClinicalTrials.gov, the U.S. National Library of Medicine's public registry. A selection is below — the links go straight to the registry entry, not to a summary of ours.
What a registered study does and does not mean. Registration means a study exists and has been declared publicly. It says nothing about whether the treatment being tested works, is safe, or is available to you. Many studies find no benefit — that is what research is for. Never seek out an experimental treatment on the strength of a registry entry alone.
Research currently under way
- Targeted Therapy Directed by Genetic Testing in Treating Patients With Advanced Refractory Solid Tumors, Lymphomas, or Multiple Myeloma (The MATCH Screening Trial)National Cancer Institute (NCI)
- OSAHS Screening in Diverse PopulationsKang Wu
- Screening for LID Clinical Studies Unit Healthy Volunteer ProtocolsNational Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
- MYELOMATCH: A Screening Study to Assign People With Myeloid Cancer to a Treatment Study or Standard of Care Treatment Within myeloMATCH (MyeloMATCH Screening Trial)National Cancer Institute (NCI)
- Feasibility of a Multi-Channel Intervention to Promote Colorectal Cancer Screening Among American Indians in OklahomaUniversity of Oklahoma
- Screening for Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) and Cognitive Function in Individuals With History of StrokeNational Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
Research already completed
- Validation of the French Version of the Perinatal Assessment of Paternal Affectivity (PAPA)University Hospital, Clermont-Ferrand
- Lipid Screening StudyUniversity of Central Florida
- The Effect of Emotional Freedom Technique on Parents' Anxiety Level: Newborn Hearing ScreeningAbant Izzet Baysal University
- The Effect of HPV Education Provided to Women on Their Knowledge Levels, HPV Screening, and Vaccination UptakeUfuk University
- AI-Based Screening and Diagnostic Models for Femoroacetabular Impingement Syndrome (FAIS-AI)ChunBao Li
- ThiPhiSA: New Pathways to Prevention From Community TB Screening in South AfricaUniversity of Washington
Study data from ClinicalTrials.gov, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved 2026-07-30. Registry entries are supplied by study sponsors and investigators; ClinicalTrials.gov does not verify their scientific validity. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH.
Where to read more
Rather than paraphrase, we point you to the primary sources. Every link below is to a government health agency, a national institute or a recognised medical body — grouped by what you are trying to find out.
Start Here
- Get ScreenedOffice of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
- Healthy Living by AgeDepartment of Health and Human Services, Office on Women's Health
- To Screen or Not to Screen? The Benefits and Harms of Screening TestsNational Institutes of Health
Related Issues
- Home Use TestsFood and Drug Administration
- How to Cope with Medical Test AnxietyNational Library of Medicine
- How to Understand Your Lab ResultsNational Library of Medicine
Genetics
- Genetic Testing: MedlinePlus Health TopicNational Library of Medicine
Medical subject headings
Clinicians and researchers index this subject under Diagnostic Tests, Routine. These are the terms to use when searching medical literature.
This page is built from the MedlinePlus health topic record for Health Screening, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health. Information is from MedlinePlus.gov. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and is not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH. Retrieved 30 July 2026.