A label too far: Overdiagnosis and medicalisation with Prof. Bjørn Hofmann

This podcast episode evolves from the previous podcasts and covers topics such as:

• distinguishing between the concepts of medicalisation and overdiagnosis and discusses their main drivers
• how medicine, healthcare and health professionals have become ever more diligent in defining, detecting, preventing and treating disease; covering more ground than ever and how this can lead to the adverse situation of overdiagnosis
• the positive and adverse effects of giving someone diagnosis
• what Bjørn terms the ‘asymmetry of aversion’; meaning that for many health professionals it is worse to overlook something than to overdo something which may facilitate overdiagnosis
• the role of AI and machine learning to address the crudeness and imprecision in some of our diagnostic labelling and processes
• high- and low-value care and the role of healthcare economics on how readily we dip into the diagnostic toolkit and medical testing
• how the expansion in the concept of disease (and diagnosis) has led to overdiagnosis and medicalisation
• what we can do to reduce the detrimental expansion of disease and subsequent overdiagnosis