In 2009, an influential panel of medical experts ignited a controversy when they recommended that most women should not begin routine mammograms to screen for breast cancer until the age of fifty, reversing guidelines they had issued just seven years before when they recommended forty as the optimal age to start getting mammograms. While some praised the new recommendation as sensible given the smaller benefit women under fifty derive from mammography, many women's groups, health care advocates, and individual women saw the guidelines as privileging financial considerations over women's health and a setback to decades-long efforts to reduce the mortality rate of breast cancer.

In The Big Squeeze, Dr. Handel Reynolds, a practicing radiologist, notes that this episode was only the most recent controversy in the turbulent history of mammography since its introduction in the early 1970s. In a book written for the millions of women who face the decision about whether to get a mammogram, health professionals interested in cancer screening, and public health policymakers, Reynolds shows how pivotal decisions made during mammography s initial launch made it all but inevitable that the test would be contentious. He describes how, at several key points in its history, the emphasis on mammography screening as a fundamental aspect of women s preventive health care coincided with social and political developments, from the women s movement in the early 1970s to breast cancer activism in the 1980s and 90s.

At the same time, aggressive promotion of mammography made the screening tool the cornerstone of a huge new industry. Taking a balanced approach to this much-disputed issue, Reynolds addresses both the benefits and risks of mammography, charting debates, for example, that have weighed the early detection of aggressively malignant tumors against unnecessary treatments resulting from the identification of slow-growing and non-life-threatening cancers. The Big Squeeze, ultimately, helps to evaluate the ongoing public health controversies surrounding mammography and provides a clear understanding of how mammography achieved its current primacy in cancer screening."

Within forty-eight hours after birth, the heel of every baby in the United States has been pricked and the blood sent for compulsory screening to detect or rule out a large number of disorders. Newborn screening is expanding rapidly, fueled by the prospect of saving lives. Yet many lives are also changed by it in ways not yet recognized. Testing Baby is the first book to draw on parents' experiences with newborn screening in order to examine its far-reaching sociological consequences. Rachel Grob's cautionary tale also explores the powerful ways that parents' narratives have shaped this emotionally charged policy arena. Newborn screening occurs almost always without parents' consent and often without their knowledge or understanding, yet it has the power to alter such things as family dynamics at the household level, the context of parenting, the way we manage disease identity, and how parents' interests are understood and solicited in policy debates.

In 2013, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) estimated that about 1.5 million veterans required mental health care, including services for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). MDD is a debilitating mental illness related to reduced quality of life and productivity, and increased risk for suicide. VA also plays a role in suicide prevention. This book begins with a brief overview of the public health framework for suicide prevention, which forms the basis for both the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention and the VHA's approach to suicide prevention. The book discusses suicide surveillance; suicide risk factors and protective factors; suicide prevention interventions; potential issues for Congress; VA's data on veterans with MDD, including those prescribed an antidepressant; the extent that veterans with MDD who are prescribed antidepressants receive recommended care and the extent to which VA monitors such care; and the quality of data VA requires VAMCs to collect on veteran suicides.

Bone mineral density (BMD) is a determinant of bone health. Phenotype, age, race, gender, activity level and overall health status all affect BMD. Recent research has shown that early pregnancy loss could be associated with bone mineral density. Reduced bone mass, bone density and consequently the pathological conditions, osteopenia and osteoporosis, represent significant health problems and contribute to disability, mortality, and reduced health related quality of life among older women and men. This book examines disorders that affect bone density, such as rickets and osteomalacia, and discusses screening and treatment options available for these and other bone disorders.

Cancer screening is a prominent strategy in cancer control in the United States, yet the ability to correctly interpret cancer screening data eludes many researchers, clinicians, and policy makers. This open access primer rectifies that situation by teaching readers, in simple language and with straightforward examples, why and how the population-level cancer burden changes when screening is implemented, and how we assess whether that change is of benefit. This book provides an in-depth look at the many aspects of cancer screening and its assessment, including screening phenomena, performance measures, population-level outcomes, research designs, and other important and timely topics. Concise, accessible, and focused, Assessment of Cancer Screening: A Primer is best suited to those with education or experience in clinical research or public health in the United States - no previous knowledge of cancer screening assessment is necessary. This is the first text dedicated to cancer screening theory and methodology to be published in 20 years.

The secrets locked in our genes are being revealed, and we find ourselves both enthused and frightened about what that portends. We look forward to curing disease and alleviating suffering--for our children as well as for ourselves--but we also worry about delving too deeply into the double helix. Abuses perpetrated by eugenicists--from involuntary sterilization to murder--continue to taint our feelings about genetic screening.

Yet, as Ruth Schwartz Cowan reveals, modern genetic screening has been practiced since 1960, benefiting millions of women and children all over the world. She persuasively argues that new forms of screening--prenatal, newborn, and carrier testing--are both morally right and politically acceptable. Medical genetics, built on the desire of parents and physicians to reduce suffering and increase personal freedom, not on the desire to "improve the human race," is in fact an entirely different enterprise from eugenics.

Cowan's narrative moves from an account of the interwoven histories of genetics and eugenics in the first half of the twentieth century, to the development of new forms of genetic screening after mid-century. It includes illuminating chapters on the often misunderstood testing programs for sickle cell anemia, and on the world's only mandated premarital screening programs, both of them on the island of Cyprus.

Neither minimizing the difficulty of the choices that modern genetics has created for us nor fearing them, Cowan bravely and compassionately argues that we can improve the quality of our own lives and the lives of our children by using the modern science and technology of genetic screening responsibly.

In 2009, an influential panel of medical experts ignited a controversy when they recommended that most women should not begin routine mammograms to screen for breast cancer until the age of fifty, reversing guidelines they had issued just seven years before when they recommended forty as the optimal age to start getting mammograms. While some praised the new recommendation as sensible given the smaller benefit women under fifty derive from mammography, many women's groups, health care advocates, and individual women saw the guidelines as privileging financial considerations over women's health and a setback to decades-long efforts to reduce the mortality rate of breast cancer. In The Big Squeeze, Dr. Handel Reynolds, a practicing radiologist, notes that this episode was only the most recent controversy in the turbulent history of mammography since its introduction in the early 1970s. In a book written for the millions of women who face the decision about whether to get a mammogram, health professionals interested in cancer screening, and public health policymakers, Reynolds shows how pivotal decisions made during mammography's initial launch made it all but inevitable that the test would be contentious. He describes how, at several key points in its history, the emphasis on mammography screening as a fundamental aspect of women's preventive health care coincided with social and political developments, from the women's movement in the early 1970s to breast cancer activism in the 1980s and '90s. At the same time, aggressive promotion of mammography made the screening tool the cornerstone of a huge new industry. Taking a balanced approach to this much-disputed issue, Reynolds addresses both the benefits and risks of mammography, charting debates, for example, that have weighed the early detection of aggressively malignant tumors against unnecessary treatments resulting from the identification of slow-growing and non-life-threatening cancers. The Big Squeeze, ultimately, helps to evaluate the ongoing public health controversies surrounding mammography and provides a clear understanding of how mammography achieved its current primacy in cancer screening.

In this book, the authors gather and present current research in the study of the principles, analysis and benefits of screening tests. Topics discussed include the development of a screening instrument to detect common mental disorders in long-term sickness absence; a vision screening test in new-borns; nailfold capillaroscopy as a basic screening tool in Raynaud's phenomenon; the Profile of Moods Scale to assess six dimensions of mood; the Audio Recorded Cognitive Screen (ARCS) as a flexible and versatile instrument of clinical and research settings.

No Family History presents compelling evidence of environmental links to breast cancer, ranging from everyday cosmetics to industrial waste. Sabrina McCormick weaves the story of one survivor with no family history into a powerful exploration of the big business of breast cancer. A growing number of experts argue that we should increase focus on prevention--reducing environmental exposures that have contributed to the sharp increase of breast cancer rates. But the dollars continue to pour into the search for a cure, and the companies that profit, including some pharmaceutical and cosmetics companies, may in fact contribute to the environmental causes of breast cancer. No Family History shows how profits drive our public focus on the cure rather than prevention, and suggests new ways to reduce breast cancer rates in the future.

This collection of six papers on the role of quantitative risk assessment in the promulgation of recent regulatory standards represents the latest contribution to a series of volumes published by Lester Lave and the Brookings Institution on regulatory decisionmaking.