How Better Education of Doctors and Patients Can Improve Health Care at Less Cost

The Ernst Strüngmann Forum brought together 40 international experts from clinical work, psychology, economy, public health, industry and insurance to analyze systematically the multiple issues involved in health literacy and to delineate concrete ways to improve it. Their work will now appear in a volume edited by Gerd Gigerenzer and Sir Muir Gray.

Many scientific publications use misleading numbers to communicate risk. This article examines publications in medical journals and demonstrates how missing transparency constrains the accurate understanding of risks.

Efficient health care requires informed doctors and patients. Gerd Gigerenzer and Sir J. A. Muir Gray identify seven "sins" that have contributed to a lack of respective knowledge and explain why governments and health institutes need to change course.

It is often taken for granted that complex judgments require complex strategies. In a review article published in Cognitive Processing, we argue that in situations with an uncertain outcome, the opposite is in fact true.

Interviews with more than 10,000 individuals in 9 European countries revealed that Europeans are poorly informed optimists when it comes to cancer screening and its benefits.

Many doctors, patients, journalists, and politicians alike do not understand what health statistics mean or draw wrong conclusions without noticing.