Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 19, 2026

Inverse Probability of Treatment Weighting (Propensity Score) using the Military Health System Data Repository and National Death Index
Published on: January 8, 2020
Ratio measures in leading medical journals: structured review of accessibility of underlying absolute risks
Lisa M Schwartz1, Steven Woloshin, Evan L Dvorin
1Veteran Affairs Outcomes Group, White River Junction, VT 05009, USA.
Objective:
To examine the accessibility of absolute risk in articles reporting ratio measures in leading medical journals.
Design:
Structured review of abstracts presenting ratio measures.
Setting:
Articles published between 1 June 2003 and 1 May 2004 in Annals of Internal Medicine, BMJ, Journal of the American Medical Association, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Lancet, and New England Journal of Medicine.
Participants:
222 articles based on study designs in which absolute risks were directly calculable (61 randomised trials, 161 cohort studies).
Main Outcome Measure:
Accessibility of the absolute risks underlying the first ratio measure in the abstract.
Results:
68% of articles (150/222) failed to report the underlying absolute risks for the first ratio measure in the abstract (range 55-81% across the journals). Among these articles, about half did report the underlying absolute risks elsewhere in the article (text, table, or figure) but half did not report them anywhere. Absolute risks were more likely to be reported in the abstract for randomised trials compared with cohort studies (62% v 21%; relative risk 3.0, 95% confidence interval 2.1 to 4.2) and for studies reporting crude compared with adjusted ratio measures (62% v 21%; relative risk 3.0, 2.1 to 4.3).
Conclusion:
Absolute risks are often not easily accessible in articles reporting ratio measures and sometimes are missing altogether-this lack of accessibility can easily exaggerate readers' perceptions of benefit or harm.
Related Concept Videos
Types of Biopharmaceutical Studies: Controlled and Non-Controlled Approaches
Non-controlled studies, commonly employed for initial exploration, lack a control group, rendering them susceptible to biases and external influences. In contrast, controlled...
Relative Risk
Hazard Ratio
For example, in a clinical trial evaluating a...
Bias in Epidemiological Studies
Odds Ratio
Bioavailability Study Design: Absolute Versus Relative Bioavailability