Reduce your risk of cancer

Screening can help protect your health through early detection of disease and is recommended for people who don’t have any symptoms. Screening can reduce the risk of developing, or dying from, a disease but it does not guarantee that a disease will not occur, or that it can be cured.

Screening involves a test to look for particular changes, or early signs of a disease either before it has developed or in its early stages before any symptoms develop. No screening test is 100% accurate so it is important to be screened at regular intervals.

Population screening

Population screening is when a screening test is offered to a large group of healthy people to detect early signs of a disease. The people (population group) identified to participate in population screening are targeted because there is strong scientific evidence that they are most at risk of getting the disease and will get the most health benefit from screening.

The aim of population screening is to reduce the burden of the disease and provide health benefits to the community.

Population-based screening in Queensland

Three national population-based screening programs are available for eligible Queenslanders. These are:

Other types of screening

Your doctor may offer other screening tests, depending on your gender, age or circumstances (for example family history). These are not part of population screening programs. Blood tests to check cholesterol or iron levels are examples of these screening tests.

Screening tests are different to diagnostic tests. A diagnostic test is done if you already have symptoms of a disease to determine whether or not a disease is present.