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Cited by 771

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 144 of the 144 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Numeric, Verbal, and Visual Formats of Conveying Health Risks: Suggested Best Practices and Future Recommendations

Open access
Lipkus, Isaac M.·2007·Medical Decision Making
DOI 10.1177/0272989x07307271
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Abstract

Perception of health risk can affect medical decisions and health behavior change. Yet the concept of risk is a difficult one for the public to grasp. Whether perceptions of risk affect decisions and behaviors often relies on how messages of risk magnitudes (i.e., likelihood) are conveyed. Based on expert opinion, this article offers, when possible, best practices for conveying magnitude of health risks using numeric, verbal, and visual formats. This expert opinion is based on existing empirical evidence, review of papers and books, and consultations with experts in risk communication. This article also discusses formats to use pertaining to unique risk communication challenges (e.g., conveying small-probability events, interactions). Several recommendations are suggested for enhancing precision in perception of risk by presenting risk magnitudes numerically and visually. Overall, there are little data to suggest best practices for verbal communication of risk magnitudes. Across the 3 formats, few overall recommendations could be suggested because of 1) lack of consistency in testing formats using the same outcomes in the domain of interest, 2) lack of critical tests using randomized controlled studies pitting formats against one another, and 3) lack of theoretical progress detailing and testing mechanisms why one format should be more efficacious in a specific context to affect risk magnitudes than others. Areas of future research are provided that it is hoped will help illuminate future best practices.

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Metadata

Authors
Lipkus, I. M.
Venue
Medical Decision Making
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
2007-09
Volume
27
Issue
5
Pages
696-713
ISSN
  • 0272-989X (ISSN-L)
  • 1552-681X
DOI
10.1177/0272989x07307271
OpenAlex
W2135795051
Cited by
771
References
144
FWCI
121.93
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
bronze

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Numeric, Verbal, and Visual Formats of Conveying Health Risks: Suggested Best Practices and Future Recommendations. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1177/0272989x07307271
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Lipkus, I. M. (2007). Numeric, Verbal, and Visual Formats of Conveying Health Risks: Suggested Best Practices and Future Recommendations. Medical Decision Making. https://doi.org/10.1177/0272989x07307271

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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.