Using visual aids to improve communication of risks about health: a review García Retamero Imedio, María Del Rocío Okan Gil, Yasmina Cokely, Edward T. Decision-making Breast cancer Medical risk Cognitive reflection Numeracy skills Information Literacy Recent research has shown that patients frequently experience difficulties understanding health-relevant numerical concepts. A prominent example is denominator neglect, or the tendency to pay too much attention to numerators in ratios (e.g., number of treated patients who died) with insufficient attention to denominators (e.g., overall number of treated patients). Denominator neglect can lead to inaccurate assessments of treatment risk reduction and thus can have important consequences for decisions about health. Here, we reviewed a series of studies investigating (1) different factors that can influence patients’ susceptibility to denominator neglect in medical decision making—including numerical or language-related abilities; (2) the extent to which denominator neglect can be attenuated by using visual aids; and (3) a factor that moderates the effectiveness of such aids (i.e., graph literacy). The review spans probabilistic national U.S. and German samples, as well as immigrant (i.e., Polish people living in the United Kingdom) and undergraduate samples in Spain. Theoretical and prescriptive implications are discussed. 2014-05-30T07:18:18Z 2014-05-30T07:18:18Z 2012 info:eu-repo/semantics/article García-Retamero, R.; Okan, Y.; Cokely, E.T. Using visuala aids to improve communication of risks about health: a review. Scientific World Journal, 2012: 562637 (2012). [doi: 10.1100/2012/562637] 1537-744X http://hdl.handle.net/10481/32037 10.1100/2012/562637 eng info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Hindawi Publishing Corporation