Surveillance Bias and Higher-Weight People

I frequently write about types of weight stigma and bias. Today I want to talk about a specific form called Surveillance Bias, I’ve also heard it called Detection Bias or Testing Bias. I want to talk about how this kind of bias can lead to claims that a health issue is more likely to be found in a group of people when actually the difference is/may be because of the way that group of people were surveilled/tested.

It’s really important to look for this type of bias because when this happens, it can cause the wrong risk factor to be identified which can lead to over -treatment of some groups and under-treatment of others.