Risk, Risk Factors, And Survival Rates – What Do These Cancer Statistics Really Mean?
So many different statistics are published about my cancer. Risk factor statistics make me feel guilty that I caused my cancer. Survival statistics terrify me! Can I beat the odds? How do I apply statistics to my own situation? Christoph Maier, PhD, guest Pro: To the average person, cancer statistics can be confusing and sometimes even alarming. They are often misinterpreted and misused. They are powerful tools for researchers, policy makers, and insurance companies, all of whom use statistics to make inferences about large, faceless groups of people. However, because statistics are derived from samples and because each person is very different from another in diet, age, general health, fitness level and so on, cancer statistics are only estimates. The study of large groups can make findings hard to apply to an individual person, because large groups average out the differences.
