Screening for HIV: Can We Afford the False Positive Rate?

Plans to test low-risk populations for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) antibody tend to ignore the social consequences of false positive. The authors describe the difficulties and uncertainties that testing for antibody to HIV, the prevalence of infection among segments of the population, and the statistical meaning of positive in different subgroups. They contend that screening of the general will unavoidably stigmatize and frighten many healthy people and not substantially reduce the transmission rate for AIDS. They urge that not be broadly implemented unless and until we make a deliberate of the threshold probability of infection above which we will screen make explicit the trade-offs implicit in any testing program. (KIE)