Re: Is risk compensation threatening public health in the covid-19 pandemic?
Dear Editor
Theresa Marteau raises some interesting points about risk compensation ( 8th August ). Even when risk reduction is well quantified, the public have poor health literacy and poor health numeracy, so communicating this is difficult - before one considers any complexities such as differences between relative risk reduction and absolute risk reduction in clinical trials.
Perversely, maybe it is not so much of a disadvantage that "uncertainties remain about the size of the effect from face coverings," as the message is there in the absence of any misunderstood figures.
She provides several examples of risk compensation. When I was a GP, I remember conversations with patients with heart disease along the following lines:
"Have you tried to stop smoking again? Can I offer you some support to do this?"
"It's OK, doc, you don't need to worry about me. Now I'm taking a statin and aspirin, I won't get a heart attack."
Is this an example of risk compensation or just self-delusion?
Competing interests:
No competing interests
10 August 2020
Neil G Snowise
Visiting Senior Lecturer
King's College, London
Institute of Pharmaceutical Science, King's College, London
Rapid Response:
Re: Is risk compensation threatening public health in the covid-19 pandemic?
Dear Editor
Theresa Marteau raises some interesting points about risk compensation ( 8th August ). Even when risk reduction is well quantified, the public have poor health literacy and poor health numeracy, so communicating this is difficult - before one considers any complexities such as differences between relative risk reduction and absolute risk reduction in clinical trials.
Perversely, maybe it is not so much of a disadvantage that "uncertainties remain about the size of the effect from face coverings," as the message is there in the absence of any misunderstood figures.
She provides several examples of risk compensation. When I was a GP, I remember conversations with patients with heart disease along the following lines:
"Have you tried to stop smoking again? Can I offer you some support to do this?"
"It's OK, doc, you don't need to worry about me. Now I'm taking a statin and aspirin, I won't get a heart attack."
Is this an example of risk compensation or just self-delusion?
Competing interests: No competing interests