Absolute Risk and Relative Risk in Medical Statistics

In medical statistics, understanding the concepts of absolute risk and relative risk is crucial for interpreting research findings and making informed clinical decisions. These concepts are fundamental in epidemiology, clinical research, and risk communication.

Absolute risk is the probability of an event occurring in a specific population. It is expressed as a percentage or a fraction. For example in a study of 1,000 people, 10 develop a certain disease over one year, the absolute risk of the disease is 1% (10/1,000).

Absolute risk provides the actual likelihood of an individual developing a condition or experiencing an event and is often used to communicate risk to patients.

Relative risk is the ratio of the probability of an event occurring in one group to the probability of an event occurring in another group.In other words, relative risk, also known as risk ratio, compares the risk of an event between two different groups of people. It is the ratio of the probability of the event occurring in the exposed group versus the non-exposed (or control) group. It is expressed as a ratio. For example, if the relative risk of developing cancer in a group of people who smoke compared to a group of...