Risk Literacy

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Episode #9 - The Shark and the Killer Snail
https://soundcloud.com/stat-signal-podcast/episode-9-the-shark-and-the-killer-snail?utm_content=buffercfa54&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

How do our perceptions of risk, and our outsized — or undersized — fears affect our health? In this episode of Signal we explore the killer snail (flu) and the shark (cancer screening) of medicine.

(It's a metaphor, people.)

The Signal podcast is produced by Katie Hiler. Illustration by Molly Ferguson for STAT.

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"One surgeon says you need an operation. Another says you don't. Here's why that happens."
http://www.vox.com/2016/5/19/11691622/surgery-second-opinion-research-jama

If Copeland had gone with that first doctor's advice, he said, "I would be dead right now or permanently disabled. It's not even a question."

A new study, published in the Annals of Surgery, tried to get to the bottom of that question. The authors found it all seems to come down to how different surgeons perceive risk — a reminder of how terrible humans are at risk perception, even highly skilled surgeons.

[LinksEtc]

A few links ...


Re: Bias


Re: Docs helping patients to surf the internet


Re: Docs helping patients to surf the internet
(The dropeik posts)


Re: FDA


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"Why aren't we afraid of asthma?"
https://asthmaeducationallergies.wordpress.com/2016/01/27/why-arent-we-afraid-of-asthma/

I have been following the buzz in the food allergy online support groups for a while now. It seems many of the parents in these groups live in fear of an allergen being encountered casually and thus causing anaphylaxis and death.  Yet many don't think of the more common killer. Asthma.

General asthma info & links


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Let's talk about anxiety


GMO

[LinksEtc]

Nice post.

"Managing the risk of food allergy"
http://susannahfox.com/2016/07/31/managing-the-risk-of-food-allergy/

When our son was diagnosed with food allergies, we were absorbed into a new way of life, learning the folkways of keeping him safe.

Actually, we are all managing risk. And there is a lot written about risk.

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Tweeted by @deborahblum

Know This First: Risk Perception Is Always Irrational.
We need a post-Enlightenment definition of "rationality." Reason can take us only so far.
04.11.2016 / BY David Ropeik

http://undark.org/article/know-this-first-risk-perception-is-always-irrational/

It's hard not to call them ignorant, selfish, and irrational, or to label such behavior, as some do — often with more than a hint of derision — "science denialism."

This arrogance is particularly common in the scientific, engineering, and academic communities — cultures that rest on the bedrock Enlightenment belief in reason and logic. This is curious — and an interesting example of science denialism in itself — because the scientific evidence, supported by countless examples from the real world, makes it inescapably clear that we are not the perfectly rational creatures we like to think we are.