Making sense of health statistics

(http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/8/09-069872.pdf)

Gerd Gigerenzera

a Hardnig Center for Risk Literacy, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Lentzeallee 94, 14195 Berlin, Germany.

Correspondence to Gerd Gigerenzer (e-mail: gigerenzer@mpib-berlin.mpg.de).

Many physicians, patients, health journalists and politicians do not understand

health statistics. Yet we make little effort to educate our children in statistical thinking or our medical students in understanding health statistics.

This collective statistical illiteracy has resulted in serious consequences for health./.../