Understanding Risk: What Do Those Headlines Really Mean?

[Guest guest]

Every

day in the newspaper or on television we see stories about new medical findings.

Perhaps we hear that a certain drug causes a 300% or three-fold increase in

strokes. That’s a large increase—it sounds scary. But, if you know

that in every 10,000 people not taking the drug, there are two strokes, then a

three-fold increase really only means six more strokes. Maybe that’s not

quite so frightening. It’s also confusing that sometimes stories seem to

report opposite results—a new vaccine prevents a devastating infection,

or it doesn’t. How are we to make sense of such stories? How do we know

what to believe?

This

fact sheet provides some background to help you understand these news reports.

It might also help you judge which results are really important and which are

simply interesting but not a reason to change how you take care of yourself.

To read the entre

page.

http://www.niapublications.org/tipsheets/risk.asp

Kathy