USPSTF Update: First Annual Report to Congress

U.S. Preventive Services Task Force Delivers its First Annual Report to Congress on High-Priority Gaps for Clinical Preventive Services
full-text:
http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/annlrpt/tfannrpt2011.pdf

Each year, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) works to fulfill its mission of making evidence-based recommendations on clinical preventive services to empower health care professionals, health care systems, and the American people to make informed decisions about their health and health care. The Task Force makes its recommendations based on comprehensive, systematic reviews and careful assessment of the available medical evidence. Despite these efforts, the USPSTF is not always able to provide recommendations on topics of critical importance due to a lack of available evidence.

In its “First Annual Report to Congress on High-Priority Evidence Gaps for Clinical Preventive Services,” the USPSTF highlights eleven high-priority clinical preventive services that the USPSTF believes deserve further examination with the hope that it will assist public and private researchers and research funders in targeting their efforts.  Additionally the Report includes an overview of the USPSTF, its methods, and processes.

Concurrent with the release of the USPSTF’s report, the Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) issued its first Report to Congress.  The work of the USPSTF complements that of the CPSTF, which makes recommendations to identify programs, services, and policies proven effective in communities, worksites, schools, and local governments. The CPSTF report provides background on the CPSTF, its methods, findings, and recommendations, and describes both gaps in existing research on community preventive services and priorities for future Task Force efforts.

Taken together, the recommendations of the two Task Forces provide our nation with the knowledge of how health is improved by prevention in both clinical and community settings. The two reports were submitted to Congress together on October 27, 2011 to demonstrate the close collaboration of the two Task Forces, and to provide a full picture of our nation’s prevention research needs.

Please click here http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/annlrpt/tfannrpt2011.pdf to read the complete USPSTF report. You may access the CPSTF report via the USPSTF website at:  http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/about.htm