Clear guides to the numbers, study designs and unanswered questions behind medical research.
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Absolute risk, relative change and the missing time frame.
02 / THE BIGGER PICTURECompare the question, the people and the way evidence was collected.
03 / THE OUTCOMEFollow the distance between a test result and an outcome that matters.
Find 24 research terms, from absolute risk to systematic review. Each comes with an invented example, a common pitfall and a source you can follow.
A combined outcome can tell a useful story while leaving its most important chapter unresolved. Work through a first-event example and learn what to look for in the component results.
A pooled estimate is the end of a chain of decisions. Trace the question, search, independent studies, bias and uncertainty before deciding what the headline deserves.
Work through absolute risk, relative change, time frames and treatment burden using clearly labelled examples you can check yourself.
“Not unacceptably worse” is a specific statistical question. Four invented confidence intervals show why it is different from equal, better, or simply not statistically different.
A practical method for connecting studies without counting every paper as a separate vote or mistaking a new result for the final answer.
A simple way to read absolute and relative risk together — and see what a headline leaves out.
Study design helps separate an interesting association from evidence about cause and effect.
Distinguish what a study measures from what readers hope the result means.