Patient Education and Counseling
Volume 84, Issue 2 , Pages 245-250 , August 2011

Using plausible group sizes to communicate information about medical risks

  • Rocio Garcia-Retamero

      Affiliations

    • Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
    • Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Granada, Spain
    • Corresponding Author InformationCorresponding author at: Department of Experimental Psychology, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Granada, Campus Universitario de Cartuja s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain. Tel.: +34 958 246240, fax: +34 958 246239.
    • ,
  • Mirta Galesic

      Affiliations

    • Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
    • Corresponding Author InformationCorresponding author at: Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Lentzeallee 94, 14195 Berlin, Germany. Tel.: +49 30 8240 6354; fax: +49 30 824 9939.

Received 3 January 2010 ,Revised 15 July 2010 ,Accepted 17 July 2010.

References 

  1. Galesic M, Garcia-Retamero R. Statistical numeracy for health: a cross-cultural comparison with probabilistic national samples. Arch Intern Med. 2010;170:462–468
  2. Kutner M, Greenberg E, Jin Y, Paulsen C. The health literacy of America's adults: results from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NCES 2006-483). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics; 2006.
  3. Tuijnman A. Benchmarking adult literacy in America: an international comparative study (International Adult Literacy Survey). Washington, DC: Department of Education, OVAE; 2000;
  4. Reyna VF. How people make decisions that involve risk: a dual-processes approach. Curr Dir Psychol Sci. 2004;13:60–66
  5. Garcia-Retamero R, Galesic M. Communicating treatment risk reduction to people with low numeracy skills: a cross-cultural comparison. Am J Public Health. 2009;99:2196–2202
  6. Garcia-Retamero R, Galesic M, Gigerenzer G. Do icon arrays help reduce denominator neglect? Med Decis Making, in press, doi:10.1177/0272989X10369000.
  7. Reyna VF, Brainerd CJ. Numeracy, ratio bias, and denominator neglect in judgments of risk and probability. Learn Individ Differ. 2008;18:89–107
  8. Lloyd FJ, Reyna VF. A Web exercise in evidence-based medicine using cognitive theory. J Gen Intern Med. 2001;16:94–99
  9. Ancker JS, Kaufman D. Rethinking health numeracy: a multidisciplinary literature review. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2007;14:713–721
  10. Fagerlin A, Ubel PA, Smith DM, Zikmund-Fisher BJ. Making numbers matter: present and future research in risk communication. Am J Health Behav. 2007;31:47–56
  11. Galesic M, Garcia-Retamero R, Gigerenzer G. Using icon arrays to communicate medical risks: overcoming low numeracy. Health Psychol. 2009;28:210–216
  12. Garcia-Retamero R, Galesic M. Risk communication and medical decision making: a cross-cultural perspective. Springer, in press.
  13. Gigerenzer G, Gaissmaier W, Kurz-Milcke E, Schwartz LM, Woloshin S. Helping doctors and patients make sense of health statistics. Psychol Sci Public Interest. 2008;8:53–96
  14. World Health Organization (WHO). Situation updates–Pandemic (H1N1); 2009. Retrieved November 8, 2009, from http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/updates/en/index.html.
  15. Cancer Research UK. Statistics on the most commonly diagnosed types of cancer in the UK. Retrieved October 3, 2008, from http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/types/index.htm.
  16. Dunbar RIM. Coevolution of neocortical size, group size and language in humans. Behav Brain Sci. 1993;16:681–735
  17. Wang XT. Domain-specific rationality in human choices: violations of utility axioms and social contexts. Cognition. 1996;60:31–63
  18. Denes-Raj V, Epstein S, Cole J. The generality of the ratio-bias phenomenon. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 1995;21:1083–1092
  19. Pacini R, Epstein S. The relation of rational and experiential information processing styles to personality, basic beliefs, and the ratio-bias phenomenon. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1999;76:972–987
  20. Pacini R, Epstein S. The interaction of three facets of concrete thinking in a game of chance. Think Reasoning. 1999;5:303–325
  21. Stanovich KE, West RF. On the relative independence of thinking biases and cognitive ability. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2008;94:672–695
  22. Rudski JM, Volksdorf J. Pictorial versus textual information and the ratio-bias effect. Percept Mot Skills. 2002;95:547–554
  23. Dehaene S, Izard V, Spelke E, Pica P. Log or linear? Distinct intuitions of the number scale in Western and Amazonian indigene cultures. Science. 2008;320:1217–1220
  24. Eurostat. Health statistics—key data on health; 2002. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. Retrieved October 3, 2008, from http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-08-02-002/EN/KS-08-02-002-EN.PDF.
  25. Schwartz LM, Woloshin S, Black WC, Welch HG. The role of numeracy in understanding the benefit of screening mammography. Ann Intern Med. 1997;127:966–972
  26. Lipkus IM, Samsa G, Rimer BK. General performance on a numeracy scale among highly educated samples. Med Decis Making. 2001;21:37–44
  27. Peters E, Vastfjall D, Slovic P, Mertz CK, Mozzocco K, Dickert S. Numeracy and decision making. Psychol Sci. 2006;17:406–413
  28. Yamagishi K. When a 12.86% mortality is more dangerous than 24.14%: implications for risk communication. Appl Cogn Psychol. 1997;11:495–506
  29. Chapman RH. The development of children's understanding of proportions. Child Dev. 1975;46:141–148
  30. Hoemann HW, Ross BM. Children's concepts of chance and probability. In:  Brainerd C editors. Children's logical and mathematical cognition. New York: Springer; 1982;p. 93–121
  31. Surber CF, Haines BA. The growth of proportional reasoning. Ann Child Dev. 1987;4:35–87
  32. Wang XT, Johnston VS. Perceived social context and risk preference: a re-examination of framing effects in a life-death decision problem. J Behav Decis Making. 1995;8:279–293
  33. Wang XT. Framing effects: dynamics and task domains. Organ Behav Hum Decis. 1996;68:145–157
  34. Tversky A, Kahneman D. The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science. 1981;211:453–458
  35. Wang XT. A kith-and-kin rationality in risky choices: empirical examinations and theoretical modeling. In:  Salter F editors. Risky transactions: trust, kinship, and ethnicity. Oxford, UK: Berghahn Books; 2002;p. 47–70
  36. Amalraj S, Starkweather C, Nguyen C, Naeim A. Health literacy, communication, and treatment decision-making in older cancer patients. Oncology. 2009;23:369–375
  37. Apter AJ, Paasche-Orlow MK, Remillard JT, Bennett IM, Ben-Joseph EP, Batista RM, et al. Numeracy and communication with patients: they are counting on us. J Gen Intern Med. 2008;23:2117–2124
  38. Keller C, Siegrist M. Effect of risk communication formats on risk perception depending on numeracy. Med Decis Making. 2009;29:483–490
  39. Lipkus IM. Understanding the role of numeracy in health: proposed theoretical framework and practical insights. Health Educ Behav. 2009;36:1065–1081
  40. Davids SL, Schapira MM, McAuliffe TL, Nattinger AB. Predictors of pessimistic breast cancer risk perceptions in a primary care population. J Gen Intern Med. 2004;19:310–315
  41. Donelle L, Arocha JF, Hoffman-Goetz L. Health literacy and numeracy: key factors in cancer risk comprehension. Chronic Dis Can. 2008;29:1–8
  42. Galesic M, Gigerenzer G, Straubinger N. Natural frequencies facilitate accurate judgments about medical screenings for elderly and people with lower numeracy skills. Med Decis Making. 2009;29:368–371
  43. Galesic M, Garcia-Retamero R. Communicating consequences of risky behaviors: life expectancy versus risk of disease. Patient Educ Couns, in press, doi:10.1016/j.pec.2010.02.008.
  44. Garcia-Retamero R, Galesic M. Who profits from visual aids: overcoming challenges in people's understanding of risks. Soc Sci Med. 2010;70:1019–1025
  45. Woloshin S, Schwartz LM, Black WC, Welch HG. Women's perceptions of breast cancer risk: how you ask matters. Med Decis Making. 1999;19:221–229
  46. Reyna VR, Nelson WL, Han P, Dieckmann NF. How numeracy influences risk comprehension and medical decision making. Psychol Bull. 2009;135:943–973
  47. Reyna VF, Brainerd CJ. The importance of mathematics in health and human judgment: numeracy, risk communication, and medical decision making. Learn Individ Differ. 2007;17:147–159
  48. Estrada CA, Martin-Hryniewicz M, Peek BT, Collin C, Byrd JC. Literacy and numeracy skills and anticoagulation control. Am J Med Sci. 2004;328:88–93
  49. Apter AJ, Cheng J, Small D, Bennett IM, Albert C, Fein DG, et al. Asthma numeracy skill and health literacy. J Asthma. 2006;43:705–710
  50. Rothman RL, Housam R, Weiss H, Davis D, Gregory R, Gebretsadik T, et al. Patient understanding of food labels: the role of literacy and numeracy. Am J Prev Med. 2006;31:391–398
  51. Peters E, Västfjäll D, Slovic P, Mertz CK, Mazzocco K, Dickert S. Numeracy and decision making. Psychol Sci. 2006;17:407–413
  52. Garcia-Retamero R, Galesic M. How to reduce the effect of framing on messages about health. J Gen Intern Med, in press.
  53. Gigerenzer G, Hoffrage U. How to improve Bayesian reasoning without instruction: frequency formats. Psychol Rev. 1995;102:684–704
  54. Covey JA. Meta-analysis of the effects of presenting treatment benefits in different formats. Med Decis Making. 2007;27:638–654
  55. Garcia-Retamero R, Galesic M, Gigerenzer G. Enhancing understanding and recall of quantitative information about medical risks. Spanish J Psychol, in press.
  56. Galesic M, Garcia-Retamero R. Graph literacy: a cross-cultural comparison. Med Decis Making, in press.

PII: S0738-3991(10)00428-3

doi: 10.1016/j.pec.2010.07.027

Patient Education and Counseling
Volume 84, Issue 2 , Pages 245-250 , August 2011

Article Tools

* Image Usage & Resolution