Know Your Chances: Understanding Health Statistics [Paperback]

Steven Woloshin M.D.M.S. (Author), Lisa M. Schwartz M.D.M.S. (Author), H. Gilbert Welch M.D. M.P.H. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 30, 2008

Every day we are bombarded by television ads, public service announcements, and media reports warning of dire risks to our health and offering solutions to help us lower those risks. But many of these messages are incomplete, misleading, or exaggerated, leaving the average person misinformed and confused. Know Your Chances is a lively, accessible, and carefully researched book that can help consumers sort through this daily barrage by teaching them how to interpret the numbers behind the messages. In clear and simple steps, the authors--all of them staff physicians at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in White River Junction, Vermont--take the mystery out of medical statistics. By learning to understand the medical statistics and knowing what questions to ask, readers will be able to see through the hype and find out what--if any--credible information remains. The book's easy-to-understand charts will help ordinary people put their health concerns into perspective.This short, reader-friendly volume will foster communication between patients and doctors and provide the basic critical-thinking skills necessary for navigating today's confusing health landscape.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

"How to see through the hype in medical news, ads, and public service announcements" boasts the cover of this accessible and reader-friendly book by Dartmouth Medical School faculty and researchers Woloshin, Lisa M. Schwartz, M.D., and H. Gilbert Welch, M.D. (Should I Be Tested for Cancer?). Assaulted by incomplete, misleading, and overstated health messages by the media, health journals, and pharmaceutical companies, the general public is poorly prepared in how to read the information critically, how to assess credible evidence, and how to interpret statistics. The authors here set out to correct these shortcomings by explaining how to understand risk, judge the benefit of health interventions, and consider outcomes. The subject is complex, but the text is short and simple. Quick, useful quizzes complete coverage and verify that the reader has understood the material. "Learn More" boxes provide easy opportunities to investigate a subject in more detail. A "Quick Summary," glossary, and "Credible Sources of Health Statistics" section are helpful in presenting the basic skills necessary in navigating today's confusing health-media landscape. Recommended for all libraries.—James Swanton, Harlem Hosp. Lib., New York
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Short and simple. . . . . Present(s) the basic skills necessary in navigating today's confusing health-media landscape. "--Library Journal

" Delightful and educational reading, simple enough for laypeople to understand yet academic

enough to meet the needs of . . . . students."--Choice

"Know Your Chances is an accessible and empowering text."--Jrnl of Biosocial Science

"A great reminder that . . . medical claims should always be evaluated by how they affect you and your current state of health."--Tampa Tribune

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 158 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (November 30, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520252225
• ISBN-13: 978-0520252226
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #75,094 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nice tutorial, January 18, 2009

By 

Rick Evans (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Know Your Chances: Understanding Health Statistics (Paperback)

As the medical care industry consumes larger proportions of the U.S. GDP we are bombarded by a rising number of messages from pharmaceutical companies,medical device suppliers, hospitals, medical specialists and activists seeking attention for their medical services and causes. Adding to these advertisements are medical reporters trying to attract eyeballs to their print or electronic news media.

Often these messages are accompanied by numbers intended to cast an amplifying light onto the message or simply parroted by "health reporters" too lazy to interpret data into a less misleading or alarmist form.

Know Your Chances: Understanding Health Statistics is a fast read, only 113 pages, that takes the reader step by step through what it takes to put these numbers into perspective. Why, for example is it true that the risk for being struck with colon cancer is both 5 out of 10000 and 1 out of 19. The difference between the two is time frame which is often omitted from the message.

Naked percentages are another abuse of numbers often appearing in messages. Activists will often use large percentages of small populations to suggest a big change while a corporation might use a small percentage of a large population to play down danger. Both are misleading but common.

The authors define risk in the first chapter and show the reader how to put it into perspective in chapters 2 and 3. This foundation is important as it shows how the oft cited lifetime population or annual population risk is not the same as individual risk. Lifestyle, family and medical history greatly influence individual risk.

The benefits of "health intervention" are tackled in chapters 4 and 5. Aside from weighing the benefits of intervention against the risk of doing nothing side effects must be considered. Also the outcome of an intervention must be distinguished from a treatment's benefit. They're not the same.

Think reducing risk is always good? Think again. Reducing a minor risk with a treatment that has dangerous side effects is hardly desirable. Think about a sleeping pill that might gain you 30 minutes more sleep during an eight hour night but leave you feeling drowsy during your morning commute. Chapters 6 and 7 educate the reader about the downsides of risk reduction and how to balance benefit against side effects. The remaining chapters show help the reader recognize exaggerated claims and how to become a healthy skeptic.

Each chapter includes simple but illustrative quizzes that help the reader ensure they have grasped the concepts discussed.

This book will likely be read by few patients. Few know about the book and most simply follow their doctor's advice. However this book should be a must read for any health reporter. Policy makers and influencers hoping to improve the quality of health care would also benefit reading this book.Primary care doctors would also benefit with a gentle reminder of what the learned or should have learned in medical especially in an era of soaring health care costs and exaggerated claims by for profit health care suppliers.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars if you take medicine, you should read this book, February 2, 2009

By 

Vickie Venne (Salt Lake City, UT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Know Your Chances: Understanding Health Statistics (Paperback)

If I were in charge of store displays, I would require that this book would be prominently presented for sale next to every pharmacy in this country. And I would recommend that every person who takes any medicine read it. This book is a terrific, easy to read resource for anyone who wants to make truly informed decisions regarding the risks and benefits of their personal health situation. In this technologically sophisticated age, we want to believe that those highly marketed drugs improve our health - both when we are sick and when we are trying to prevent disease. As a genetic counselor who works with families who have an increased risk of developing cancers, I spend much of my clinical time helping them understand their risk of disease and management options to reduce that risk. Many procedures and drugs do help certain people, but this book will help you understand if the drug or procedure will make a significant difference - or if you (or your third party payor) will be spending lots of money for only a little benefit. In addition, as our country continues to deal with a health care system that desperately needs to be fixed, this primer will be important for everyone who participates in the policy conversations to gain a better understanding of the way in which hype about medical risks and benefits often confuses the discussion.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening, Refreshing and Very Important, February 24, 2009

By 

G. Poirier (Orleans, ON, Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Know Your Chances: Understanding Health Statistics (Paperback)

This book is absolutely superb! The authors do an excellent job in bringing the often complicated field of medical statistics to a level that any interested layperson can easily understand. In addition to going through many examples that illustrate how important it is to ask the right questions when confronted with often sketchy statements about survival rates, death rates, drug performances, etc., they show how useful information may be sought and interpreted. This information may then be used by the interested individuals to make decisions about what to do in their own specific cases. The book includes a glossary, risk charts for women and men (with information on how to read them) and many other useful features. The writing style is clear, friendly, engaging and authoritative while remaining jargon-free. Because of this, the book is accessible to a very broad readership. In addition, this book can be considered as another important contribution to the fight against innumeracy. It can be enjoyed and used by anyone.