This quote is from p61 but the whole thing is interesting)
> Note again the great difficulty large parts of the public, like the female veterans, have with translating small frequencies into percentages. Only 25% of the population could correctly convert 1 in 1,000 to 0.1%. Even among the highest education groups, at most 30% could solve this translation task. Lipkus, Samsa, andRimer (2001) even found that only 21% of well-educated adults could answer this question correctly.
You have prostate cancer. It's definitely cancer, this isn't a misdiagnosis.
Do you want the treatment, or do you want to do nothing?
This is a real choice faced by many men, in part because of the over-use of PSA testing.
It's not just members of the public who don't understand stats, it's some doctors too.
https://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~aldous/157/Papers/health_stat...
This quote is from p61 but the whole thing is interesting)
> Note again the great difficulty large parts of the public, like the female veterans, have with translating small frequencies into percentages. Only 25% of the population could correctly convert 1 in 1,000 to 0.1%. Even among the highest education groups, at most 30% could solve this translation task. Lipkus, Samsa, andRimer (2001) even found that only 21% of well-educated adults could answer this question correctly.
You have prostate cancer. It's definitely cancer, this isn't a misdiagnosis.
Do you want the treatment, or do you want to do nothing?
This is a real choice faced by many men, in part because of the over-use of PSA testing.
https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/prostate/basic_info/benefits-harm...