Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care
November 21, 2011 — The Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care has released an updated guideline for breast cancer screening in average risk women aged 40 – 74, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. The new guideline, which weighs the potential harms of false positives and unnecessary biopsies against the potential benefits of breast cancer screening in average risk women, updates prior guidelines by the Task Force from 1994 and 2001. The recommendations can be found under Current Recommendations. A decision-aid and FAQ for Patients for this guideline can be found under Patient Resources.
What the Task Force Does
The Task Force has been established by the Public Health Agency of Canada to develop clinical practice guidelines that support primary care providers in delivering preventive health care.
The mandate of the Task Force is to develop and disseminate clinical practice guidelines for primary and preventive care, based on systematic analysis of scientific evidence.
The Task Force’s activities in support of this mandate are to:
- Determine the topics for which guidelines will be developed (or updated), informed by consultation with PHAC and Health Canada, as well as health professional associations and their membership, health charities, academic institutions, guideline producers in other countries and other relevant parties.
- Direct the Evidence Synthesis Centre in the systematic review of scientific evidence according to key questions developed by the Task Force.
- Adopt a standard methodology for assessing strength of evidence based on current scientific methods.
- Identify when to involve experts in other disciplines, to ensure the comprehensiveness of the analysis.
- Identify evidence gaps that need to be filled and articulate a research agenda to facilitate new research.
- Evaluate systematic review evidence and arrive at a consensus recommendation (s).
- Develop guidance documents for each topic, which will be easily accessible to primary health care providers.
The work of the Task Force is supported by a Task Force Office within PHAC, which facilitates the work of the Task Force and disseminates its recommendations as they become available.
What is the Task Force?
The Task Force is an independent body of fifteen primary care and prevention experts who recognise and support the need for evidence informed preventive activities in primary care in Canada. Learn more about each of the Task Force members by viewing the member biographies.
What is the Task Force’s Target Audience?
The primary target audience for Task Force's practice guidelines and related practice tools/resources are primary care health professionals. The work of the Task Force is also relevant to community and public health professionals (public health nurses, nutritionists), physician specialists, other health care and allied health professionals, program developers, policy makers, andthe Canadian public.
Looking for Our Old Web Site?
Our old website is available here and is provided as a resource. The information contained in the archived section of the Task Force web site will be incorporated shortly into our new site.