Overdiagnosis. Sick, healthy, or in-between

Aalborg University, Doctoral School in Medicine, Biomedical Science and Technology

Medical technology is vastly expanding, and self-assessment has become a big part of being healthy. Alongside, population screening is emerging, and diagnostic thresholds change, which means that even small deviations from “the normal” will be categorized as diseases. At the same time, new diseases emerge, and owing to this, increased numbers of treatments and check-ups will be needed.

This PhD course provides an overview of overdiagnosis, overdetection, misdiagnosis, and overtreatment, and following that, causes, drivers, mechanisms, and incentives to overdiagnosis.

The topics will include:

• Overdiagnosis. What it is and what it isn´t. 
• Health culture and the quest for avoiding diseases and death
• What is the diagnostic accuracy of a test when overdiagnosis occurs?
• Self-monitoring and ”digital health”

The course will be based on short lectures, group discussions, cases from epidemiological and qualitative studies, and analyzing and scrutinizing study designs.

The attendees will gain competences into the design and interpretation of clinical research beyond the Baysian diagnostic paradigm of a simple 2x2 table. In addition, they will get a perspective on how digital self-monitoring will change the culture and concept of health and disease.

The PhD course will be of interest to any researcher working with clinical research, digital health, diagnostics, screening, population-based research, and epidemiology.

For additional information, updates, and registration, please refer to AAU PhDMoodle via the link provided on the right side of this page.

Back