Steven Woloshin M.D.M.S.

Subtitled "Understanding Health Statistics",this book explains the difference between relative risk and absolute risk in a way that almost anyone can understand. It also gives you a list of questions to ask about any medical intervention or screening and factors to consider as you weigh benefits and costs.

The simplicity and repetitiveness of the text are indicative of the authors' sincere desire to change our behavior when faced with a medical issue by arming us with the tools to deflate show more the claims we hear so much about.

We can all help lower the cost of healthcare by not being duped into unnecessary screenings and treatments. My favorite sentence: "Unfortunately, very few medical interventions reduce the chance of dying from all causes combined." show less

142 pages indexed. This a book worth buying. Clearly written using simple math. "The goal of this book is to help understand health information by teaching you how to understand the medical statistics on which the medical claims are based. by learning to understand the numbers and knowing what to ask you will be able to see through the hype and find the credible information if there is any. " The book does this job very well. It can be used by anyone who has ever been sick and needed to make show more a choice between drugs or needed to decide if a course treatment would be useful. It could also be used by math teachers and science teachers to show how the use math can influence life and death decision making. Buy this book . show less

This book is okay as far as it goes, but it appears to have been written for high-school-age students or younger. There's no indication on the cover or in the introduction of its elementary approach.