Effectiveness of general practice-based health checks: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Impact of the National Health Service Health Check on cardiovascular disease risk: a difference-in-differences matching analysis

“…The meta-analysis showed that practice-based health checks were associated with significant and beneficial effects favouring the intervention group, and the result was consistent across all studies, but the magnitude of changes in surrogate outcomes remained uncertain because of the limited number of studies available. 44 Although the design and content (e.g., invitation methods, age of the population, duration and method of follow-up) of those randomized controlled trials are not directly comparable to characteristics of the Health Check program, our findings are consistent with those reported in the meta-analysis, 44 with significantly greater reductions in blood pressure, BMI and total cholesterol being observed among Health Check attendees. Our findings are also consistent with 2 previous evaluations of local Health Check programs in England, which showed significant reductions in modelled cardiovascular risk and individual risk factors (except for BMI) at 1 year after the intervention among those who attended a Health Check.…”

“…Table 4 shows that, after matching, the following diseases were diagnosed significantly more frequently among Health Check attendees: 0.17% (95% CI 0.11% to 0.23%) for chronic kidney disease, 0.09% (95% CI 0.07% to 0.11%) for familial hypercholesterolemia, 2.99% (95% CI 2.77% to 3.21%) for hypertension, 0.03% (95% CI 0.01% to 0.05%) for peripheral vascular disease and 1.31% (95% CI 1.17% to 1.45%) for type 2 diabetes mellitus (where the values shown are matching estimators of the differences between attendees and nonattendees). There was no significant increase in diagnosis of atrial fibrilla- 44 performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of the effectiveness of general health checks on surrogate outcomes (systolic and diastolic blood pressure, BMI and total cholesterol) using several randomized controlled trials, including the Oxford and Collaborators Health CHECK Trial (OXCHECK) and EUROACTION studies, the British Family Heart Study and a trial from Denmark. The meta-analysis showed that practice-based health checks were associated with significant and beneficial effects favouring the intervention group, and the result was consistent across all studies, but the magnitude of changes in surrogate outcomes remained uncertain because of the limited number of studies available.…”

Screening for increased cardiometabolic risk in primary care: a systematic review

“…Si et al examined the effect of screening versus no screening in general practice on surrogate endpoints, and found significant improvement in several cardiovascular risk factors, especially in high-risk populations. 29 A Cochrane review, however, found no effect of health checks on total and cardiovascular mortality. 30 The studies included in these reviews all started in the 20th century.…”

Screening Strategies for Unrecognized CKD

“…Addition of routine periodic health reviews does not seem to add value. Indeed, two very large systematic reviews and meta-analyses concluded that general practice periodic health increased medication utilization and use of diagnostic testing but did not accrue any net benefit in terms of improved overall or disease specific mortality (2,3). Similarly, in most cases, undirected, population-wide screening for most chronic conditions does not add value to targeted screening of patients presenting for episodic health care who are opportunistically identified as having clinical risk factors for a target condition.…”