Diagnostic utility of weight and body mass index is widely overestimated, and their use as health and wellness measures can be sources of iatrogenic harm.
AMA J Ethics. 2023;25(7):E540-544. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.540.
While useful in analyzing population trends in relative body weight, BMI possesses multiple shortcomings when used as an individualized health screening tool.
AMA J Ethics. 2023;25(7):E545-549. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2023.545.
Introduction of an intervention that reduces the perceived risk of a given behavior may cause a person to increase risky behavior—this is called “risk compensation.”
Various media are used to convey public health messages about HIV/AIDS, particularly about new opportunities for communication of prevention messages through entertainment education and computer-related technologies.
Variations among physicians in diagnosis and X-ray interpretation, the percentages of which have remained essentially unchanged for five decades, raise serious ethical concerns.
The Keiskamma Altarpiece, bears witness to the AIDS crisis, performing for South Africa the same narrative function that the Isenheim Altarpiece, a 16th-century masterpiece, did for medieval Europe during a plague.