U.S. Preventive Services Task Force

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is a Government-appointed expert panel that worked from 1984 to 1989 to develop recommendations for primary care clinicians on the appropriate content of periodic health examinations. The recommendations were based on a systematic review of approximately 2,400 published papers reporting the results of relevant clinical research. The 5-year task force project concluded in 1989 with the release of its final report, the Guide to Clinical Preventive Services. The Guide evaluated the clinical effectiveness of 169 preventive services-- screening tests, counseling interventions, immunizations, and chemoprophylactic regimens--and provided age-, sex-, and risk factor-specific recommendations about services that should be considered for periodic health examinations.

In July 1990, the Task Force was reconstituted by the Department of Health and Human Services to continue and update these scientific assessments of preventive services. The charge of the Task Force was to evaluate the effectiveness of clinical preventive services that were not previously examined; to re-evaluate those that were examined and for which there is new scientific evidence, new technologies that merit consideration, or other reasons to revisit the published recommendations; and to produce the Guide to Clinical Preventive Services, 2nd Edition.

The current Task Force consists of 10 members, who bring expertise from the principal primary care specialties--family medicine, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, and pediatrics-- and from the analytic sciences. The work of the Task Force is supported by scientific staff at the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion in Washington, DC, and by a network of experts on preventive medicine and specific clinical topics throughout academia, the Federal Government, and the medical practice community.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force methodology emphasizes systematic analytic procedures to review scientific evidence for the purpose of developing sound practice guidelines. The Task Force evaluations are submitted for consideration by medical organizations, specialty societies, Government agencies, and other groups concerned with the delivery of clinical preventive services, and will be published in peer-reviewed medical journals and in new editions of the Guide.

The Task Force is an independent advisory panel that conducts impartial assessments of scientific evidence. Thus, although sponsored by the Government, its members are non-Federal and do not represent specific organization or Government agency views. The recommendations and reports of the Task Force are not official statements or guidelines of the Public Health Service or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Further information about the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force can be obtained from David Atkins, M.D., M.P.H., or Carolyn G. DiGuiseppi, M.D., M.P.H., Wilco Building, Suite 310, 6000 Executive Blvd., Rockville, MD 20852 phone: 301/594-4015; fax: 301/594-4027.