Effects of comparative information when communicating personalized risks of treatment outcomes: an experimental study

“R” you getting this? Factors contributing to the public’s understanding, evaluation, and use of basic reproduction numbers for infectious diseases

“…This lack of understanding, evaluability, and use also relates to the challenge with not everyone being able to work with numbers and mathematical concepts, also known as “numeracy” [ 17 ]. Compared to the highly numerate, less numerate individuals are more likely to avoid and pay less attention to numeric information, have more problems with ignoring irrelevant information or correctly interpreting probabilities, and are less sensitive to numeric information (i.e., the “feel” of numbers) [ 17 – 19 ]. Less numerate people also find it generally hard to derive affective meaning from unfamiliar numerical information, which greatly impacts its usefulness in decision-making as it can be difficult to interpret [ 11 ].…”

“…Consistent with dual coding theory and CTML, there is large body of literature showing that different types of visual aids can improve understanding and perception of different types of (complex) health statistics [ 21 , 22 , 30 ]. For instance, icon arrays (where stick figures displayed in different colors represent individuals with or without experiencing an event) have been shown to facilitate understanding of various health statistics such as event rates, part-whole relationships, comparative risks, and incremental risks [ 19 , 31 , 32 ]. By presenting health risks as population figures, it has been demonstrated that people can process risks more rapidly and automatically with less cognitive effort.…”

“…Put differently, the more evaluable a health statistic is, the better individuals can determine whether it is good or bad and whether they should take action or not. Several experimental studies have shown that when receiving personalized risk information, adding other relevant comparative information such as the average person’s risk may help individuals to better evaluate or estimate their personalized risk [ 19 , 37 ]. However, telling people whether they are below or above average may also (undesirably) influence their attitudes towards risks and benefits of treatment options [ 38 ].…”

“…However, like numbers, (visual) evaluative labels are vulnerable to wide variations in their perceived magnitude and may unnecessarily lead to higher affective evaluations or emotional responses due to their categorical nature (e.g., good vs. bad news) [ 19 , 43 ]. In line with the affect heuristic and traditional dual process models on information processing and persuasion such as the elaboration likelihood model [ 44 , 45 ], people make risk judgments based on not only their cognitions and rational analyses but also on their affective feelings and heuristic cues.…”

Adherence to COVID‐19 health protocols in an online news context in the Philippines: A manifest content analysis

“…Due to the limited information and knowledge provided about the current situation, there was confusion during the pandemic (Lilleker et al., 2021). If individuals are aware of the adverse effects of the coronavirus pandemic and feel confident in their ability to manage the pandemic's effects, they will be better prepared to react to the risk of a disaster, such as the COVID‐19 pandemic (Rosemary & Evensen, 2021; Vromans et al., 2022). However, a recent study finds that the government's disaster risk reduction‐related organizations, including media agencies, did not immediately and adequately respond to the COVID‐19 pandemic (Djalante et al., 2020).…”