Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 30, 2026

Inverse Probability of Treatment Weighting Propensity Score using the Military Health System Data Repository and National Death Index
Published on: January 8, 2020
For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong: and other aphorisms about medical
Joachim Sturmberg1, Stefan Topolski
1Newcastle University, Australia.
Rationale, Method:
This essay examines the notions of knowledge, truth and certainty as they apply to medical research and patient care. The human body does not behave in mechanistic but rather complex adaptive ways; thus, its behaviour to challenges is non-deterministic. This insight has important ramifications for experimental studies in health care and their statistical interrogation that are described in detail.
Results And Conclusions:
Four implications are highlighted: one, there is an urgent need to develop a greater awareness of uncertainties and how to respond to them in clinical practice, namely, what is important and what is not in the context of this patient; two, there is an equally urgent need for health professionals to understand some basic statistical terms and their meanings, specifically absolute risk, its reciprocal, numbers needed to treat and its inverse, index of therapeutic impotence, as well as seeking out the effect size of an intervention rather than blindly accepting P-values; three, there is an urgent need to accurately present the known in comprehensible ways through the use of visual tools; and four, there is a need to overcome the perception, that errors of commission are less troublesome than errors of omission as neither's consequences are predictable.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Bias in Epidemiological Studies
Documentation of Nursing Diagnosis
In some settings, data-driven computerized decision support systems are in place, allowing for more accurate nursing diagnoses. The database within one of these systems includes diagnostic labels defining characteristics, activities, and indicators for nursing. A nurse enters...
Regression Toward the Mean
Statistical Methods for Analyzing Epidemiological Data
Errors occurring during blood pressure monitoring
Several factors...
Bias
In statistics, a sampling bias is created when a sample is collected from a population, and some members of the population are not as likely to be chosen as others (remember, each member...

