Know Your Chances: Understanding Health Statistics

Steven Woloshin

ISBN 10: 0520252225 / ISBN 13: 9780520252226

Published by University of California Press, 2008

About this Item

2008. 1st Edition. Paperback. 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. This book intends to help consumers sort through this daily barrage by teaching them how to interpret the numbers behind the messages. Num Pages: 158 pages, 18 tables, 5 halftones, 12 line drawings, 2 charts. BIC Classification: JF; MBNS; MBP. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 228 x 176 x 13. Weight in Grams: 300. . . . . .

Seller Inventory # V9780520252226

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Know Your Chances: Understanding Health Statistics
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication Date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0520252225
• ISBN 13: 9780520252226
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

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.

About the Author

Steven Woloshin, MD, MS, Lisa Schwartz, MD, MS, and H. Gilbert Welch, MD, MPH, are general internists, faculty members at Dartmouth Medical School, and researchers in the VA Outcomes Group, Department of Veterans Affairs, White River Junction, Vermont. Woloshin and Schwartz have written many articles together for leading medical journals, and Welch is the author of Should I Be Tested for Cancer? Maybe Not and Here's Why (UC Press).