TY - JOUR T1 - Is it time to end general health checks? JF - BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine JO - BMJ EBM SP - 115 LP - 116 DO - 10.1136/bmjebm-2019-111227 VL - 25 IS - 3 AU - Carl Heneghan AU - Kamal R Mahtani Y1 - 2020/06/01 UR - http://ebm.bmj.com/content/25/3/115.abstract N2 - General Health checks are used in several countries. However, the evidence suggests they are not effective and offer low-value healthcare. In some countries, general health checks form part of routine healthcare. In the UK, for instance, a National Health Service (NHS) health check is offered to everyone over the age of 40 and under 74. In America, about one in five adults (approximately 64 million Americans) have an annual general examination, costing more than $5 billion.1 However, it is not clear whether health checks are effective for improving morbidity, quality of life or mortality.A recent update of a Cochrane review aimed to quantify the benefits and harms of health checks (defined as ‘screening for more than one disease or risk factor in more than one organ system’) in healthy adults compared with no checks.2 The review included 17 randomised trials, of which 15 reported outcome data for 251 891 participants. Nine of the trials were set in a medical centre, five in general practice and one in a workplace setting. Overall health checks did not affect total mortality, risk ratio (RR) … ER -