Kidney disease, hidden now
Kidney disease risk score (SCORED)
SCORED (SCreening for Occult REnal Disease) asks 9 simple questions to find adults who are more likely to have chronic kidney disease (CKD) that has not been found yet. It is a self-check for who should get tested, not a diagnosis: only blood and urine tests can show how your kidneys are working.
Your answers
For adults. No lab results needed. Nothing you enter leaves this page.
What you will see
Your SCORED total out of 12, whether it reaches the line of 4 used in the original study, and the points behind it.
Educational only, not medical advice. A self-check for who should get tested, not a diagnosis.
Source
Bang H et al., Archives of Internal Medicine 2007 (the original SCORED model; the cut point of 4 and its accuracy from its abstract). The full 2007 paper is not open access, so the points are read from the original questionnaire as reprinted in two open papers that cite it: Suen LKP et al. 2026 (Tables 1 and 8) and Guimarães AO et al. 2026 (Methods). The two reprints match point for point.
Validated in
Built in 8,530 US adults from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) 1999 to 2002, and checked in a separate US group, the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study. Chronic kidney disease meant an estimated GFR below 60.
Limits
Finds people more likely to have kidney disease now; it does not measure kidney function, cannot diagnose or rule out CKD, and does not predict kidney disease in the future. It was built to find a GFR below 60, so it can miss earlier kidney damage that shows up only as protein in the urine. Not for people already diagnosed with kidney disease.
What the score is, and what it is not
SCORED was built from routine information, age, sex and common health conditions, to pick out people with a higher chance of chronic kidney disease, defined in the study as an estimated GFR below 60 (Bang 2007). The authors made it because, although a creatinine blood test is cheap and widely available, people at risk were not routinely being tested (Bang 2007). A high score is a reason to get tested; a low score is not a clean bill of health. The tests that actually check your kidneys are the eGFR blood test and the urine albumin test (NIDDK).
The points come from the original 2007 study (Bang 2007), read from the questionnaire as reprinted by Suen 2026 (Suen 2026) and Guimarães 2026 (Guimarães 2026).
The points
| Question | Points |
|---|---|
| Age 50 to 59 / 60 to 69 / 70 or older | 2 / 3 / 4 |
| Female | 1 |
| Anemia, now or in the past | 1 |
| High blood pressure | 1 |
| Diabetes | 1 |
| Heart attack or stroke in the past | 1 |
| Congestive heart failure | 1 |
| Circulation disease in the legs | 1 |
| Protein in the urine on a test | 1 |
Points from the original SCORED questionnaire as reprinted in Suen 2026 (Suen 2026) and Guimarães 2026 (Guimarães 2026). Age under 50 adds no points, and the highest total is 12 (Suen 2026).
What a score of 4 or more means
The study chose a score of 4 or more as the line for screening (Bang 2007). In the group it was built in, that line:
- picked up 92% of people who had chronic kidney disease (sensitivity);
- stayed below 4 for 68% of people who did not (specificity);
- was right for 18% of people at or above it: about 1 in 5 of them had CKD (positive predictive value);
- was right for 99% of people below it, who did not have CKD (negative predictive value).
Figures as printed in the 2007 abstract (Bang 2007). So most people who score 4 or more turn out not to have kidney disease, and a few people below 4 do. The score separated people with and without CKD well in the data it was built in (area under the curve 0.88) and less well in the separate ARIC group (0.71) (Bang 2007).
What to do with your result
Whatever your score, NIDDK recommends getting checked for kidney disease if you have diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease or a family history of kidney failure, every year if you have diabetes (NIDDK). A check means two tests: an eGFR blood test and a urine albumin test (NIDDK). If you score 4 or more and have never had these tests, ask your doctor about them.
Already have results? Work out your number with the eGFR calculator and the urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio calculator, and see how they combine in kidney disease stages, explained. Diabetes and high blood pressure are both in the score; see also the type 2 diabetes risk test and the high blood pressure screening check.
Sources
- Bang H, Vupputuri S, Shoham DA, Klemmer PJ, Falk RJ, Mazumdar M, Gipson D, Colindres RE, Kshirsagar AV. SCreening for Occult REnal Disease (SCORED): a simple prediction model for chronic kidney disease. Arch Intern Med. 2007;167(4):374-381. PMID 17325299. (Origin of the SCORED questionnaire; we read the abstract.) pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17325299/
- Suen LKP, Wong MWY, Tsang MCM, Tam BML, et al. Preliminary Validation of a Modified Screening Tool for the Early Detection of Chronic Kidney Disease in a Pilot Sample. Healthcare (Basel). 2026;14(5). doi:10.3390/healthcare14050589. (Reprints the original SCORED points in Tables 1 and 8.) pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12984770/
- Guimarães AO, Santana NO, Gismondi RA, Correia DMDS, et al. Factors related to the risk of developing chronic kidney disease in resistant hypertensive patients: a cross-sectional study. Rev Bras Enferm. 2026;79:e20250160. doi:10.1590/0034-7167-2025-0160. (Describes the original SCORED points in its Methods.) pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13262983/
- National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIH). Chronic Kidney Disease Tests and Diagnosis. www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/kidney-disease/chronic-kidney-disease-ckd/tests-diagnosis
Written and maintained by the uncovermyrisk.com editorial team. We do not have a medical reviewer; every claim links to its primary source above. Last reviewed: 2026-11-01. Spotted an error? See About.