RSSeNEWS to be determined...

In November, the Medical Section discussed the challenges and issues that arise when communicating the risks to health to the public. The meeting challenged whose responsibility it is to communicate these risks so that they are clearly understood to enable informed decision making. Statisticians, healthcare professionals, patient groups and the media were represented.

David Spiegelhalter, Winton professor of the public understanding of risk at the University of Cambridge, began the meeting. In his talk, entitled ‘It’s the statistician’s fault if risks are misunderstood: discuss’, he considered the appropriate use of quantitative methods in dealing with risk and uncertainty in the lives of individuals and society. It was proposed that the statistician has an important role in the communication of risks to health and should take greater responsibility in providing information for decision making.

Following on, Nicole Crosby-McKenna the development officer for Epilepsy Action discussed some of the difficulties that women with epilepsy face when making decisions about taking medication. In her talk ‘Information overload’, she described how the volume of information about health risks is large and hard to consume for many patients. The case was presented for how the media has an important role to play in empowering the patient, the key being the way in which statistics are presented.

Janine Winterbottom continued to represent the patient, with her talk ‘The patient’s perspective: the experiences of women with epilepsy’. An epilepsy nurse specialist at the Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust, Liverpool, she presented some of her findings from her PhD thesis on how women with epilepsy interpret risk information delivered within routine epilepsy review appointments and how this influences pregnancy planning behaviour and decision making.

Nigel Hawkes, director of Straight Statistics and former journalist, presented his talk ‘Risk communication in the media: friend or foe?’ He explored how journalists are obsessed with risks and numbers, appealing to the public and their sense of outrage. More foe than friend, the media has become focused on what upsets people, not necessarily what will kill them.

The last speaker in the programme, Jane Hutton from the University of Warwick, considered the ethics of risk communication in her presentation ‘Communicating risk: duties, virtues and utilities’. She debated whose responsibility it was to provide risk information to enable informed decision making: the statistician, journalist or clinician? The potential of information overload is a real possibility, as is withholding essential information. However, it is the patient’s responsibility to make decisions about their health and they have the duty and obviously the right to ask for more information. When communicating risks we are communicating uncertainty. The process of understanding uncertainty is a shared one, contributing to the process of decision making upon which the clinical consultation is based.

Report by Philip Sedgwick