The benefits and harms of cancer screening programmes for adults with intellectual disabilities: A systematic review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Introduction Cancer screening programmes are an important public health initiative aimed at reducing morbidity and mortality through the early detection of breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers. The available evidence points towards lower screening participation in cancer screening programmes among people with intellectual disabilities, but the balance of benefits and harms of screening is unknown. The aim of this systematic review is to examine the health outcomes (mortality, morbidity) and harms of cancer screening programmes for adults with intellectual disabilities. Materials and methods The review is registered on the Open Science Framework Registries: https://osf.io/8vmkb . A systematic search of published peer-reviewed and grey literature was conducted from inception up to 28 th February 2025. MEDLINE, EMBASE, Web of Science, PsycINFO, and relevant organisational websites were searched. Additionally, experts in the field were consulted about evidence on the health outcomes and harms of national cancer screening programmes for adults with intellectual disabilities. Two reviewers independently screened titles and abstracts and assessed full texts against the eligibility criteria. Results A total of 3,104 records were identified, and 232 full-text articles were assessed for eligibility. No study met the inclusion criteria. Conclusions There is a critical lack of evidence regarding the benefits and harms of cancer screening programmes for people with intellectual disabilities. There are numerous studies relating to coverage, uptake, and factors influencing participation in cancer screening programmes. Participation should not be assumed to equate to better outcomes, and there is a real risk of ‘equity-washing’ if this is used as a basis for practice. There is, therefore, an urgent need to examine the full screening pathway continuum for people with intellectual disabilities, along with the associated outcomes, benefits, and harms.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.011 | 0.063 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.007 | 0.008 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.006 | 0.007 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".