Mammograms are said to cut the risk of dying from breast cancer by as much as 20 percent, which sounds like an invincible argument for regular screening.
Two Maryland researchers want people to question that kind of thinking. They want patients to reexamine the usefulness of cancer exams, cholesterol tests, osteoporosis pills, MRI scans and many other routinely prescribed procedures and medicines.
And they want to convince them with statistics — but don’t worry! They promise not to use algebra or spreadsheets. Or even numbers.
Health costs continue to grow much faster than the economy’s ability to pay them. Partly as a result, scrutiny of potentially unneeded and harmful treatment has never been more intense.
Nearly three physicians in four surveyed by the American Board of Internal Medicine said unnecessary tests and procedures are a serious problem. The authoritative National Academy of Medicine estimated that 30 percent of all health spending — $750 billion — is wasted on fraud, administration and needless procedures.
But even doctors often don’t understand the tradeoffs involved in many tests and medicines, says Dr. Andrew Lazris, a Maryland internist. When they do, they have trouble explaining them to patients.
To change that, Lazris and environmental scientist Erik Rifkin are trying to popularize an intuitive, pictorial way of showing just how few people are helped — and how many are even harmed — by many common procedures.
Health is best discussed in the language of risk and probability, but the $70 billion spent on long-shot government lotteries every year suggests that Americans are a bit challenged in that regard. Behavioral psychologists have confirmed what a French writer observed in the 1600s: “Each believes easily what he fears and what he desires.”
Especially about health. Lazris and Rifkin want to give people a more realistic way of evaluating medical hopes and worries.
They ask patients to picture a hall of people getting a test, operation or prescription. Patients might be shocked at how few in the crowded room get any benefit out of the expensive care.
Their “benefit-risk characterization theater” images vividly show the odds, based on solid research. There’s a sold-out house of 1,000 playgoers or concertgoers, all getting a particular kind of exam, screen or pill.
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