What Is Risk? | email this page |
Researchers describe risk as the estimated chance of getting a disease during a certain time period, such as within the next 10 years, or during your lifetime. For example, you might hear a statement “A man’s risk of developing prostate cancer is 17 percent during his lifetime.” For information about the statistical terms used to express risk and other statistical measures of cancer, see the Glossary of Statistical Terms. |
Find out more: | ||
How most people think about risk | How doctors think about risk |
Test your knowledge of risk:
For men in the U.S., the lifetime risk of prostate cancer is nearly 17 percent. What does this mean? | |
|
a. Correct. Absolute risk is the number of people who will get the disease within a certain time period. It can also be stated as a percent. The general rule for these numbers is to consider a lifetime in the U.S. as 80 years.
b. Try Again. The 17 percent statistic relates to chances of being diagnosed with prostate cancer, not of dying from it.
c. Try Again. The 17 percent statistic provides information about the risk of prostate cancer over a lifetime (about 80 years). It cannot be applied to a single year of life.
|
African American
men have a relative risk of 1.2 for diagnosis
of prostate cancer when compared to White men. What
does this mean? | |
a. Try
Again. The relative risk number compares only the two groups mentioned
for the specific risk factor of race.
It does not provide information about other risk factors—such
as where someone may live.
b. Correct.
The number 1.2 is higher than 1, which is the number assigned to
White men (the group to which African American men are being compared). This means that African American men have a .2 or 20 percent
greater chance of getting prostate cancer than White men. Because
of this, scientists refer to race as a risk factor for prostate
cancer.
c. Try
Again. The number 1.2 is higher than 1, which is the number assigned
to White men (the group to which African American men are being
compared). This means that it is expected that more African American
men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer than White men.
|