Visualizing harms and benefits of tests & treatments

Andy Lazris is a primary care doctor in Maryland (I’ve met a few times). Eric Rifkin a retired environmental engineer.

They were interested in how to communicate risk in medicine—Andy as a doctor, Eric a patient.

Back in 2016 NPR wrote about their ideas and made this catchy video on mammography. Unlike most tests, mammograms have been evaluated in many RCTs and have great data to show the benefits aren’t that great. So, although you can find sensitivity and specificity for mammograms, even better is harms & benefits, like they show here.

Their theatres are excellent for displaying how those who benefit are randomly distributed.

I would have preferred something more low brow like an arena and I have thoughts on saying Harm vs. Benefits, but those are details

If you’re interested, they have a book. Check it out.