Director Harding Center for Risk Literacy
University of Potsdam, Faculty of Health Sciences
Potsdam, Germany

 

10:00 a.m.

Friday, May 30, 2025

International Academy of Endodontics Annual Meeting

The Midland Manchester

Manchester, United Kingdom

 

 

In modern high-tech health care, patients appear to be the stumbling block: an uninformed, anxious, noncompliant folk with unhealthy lifestyles who demand treatments advertised by celebrities, insist on unnecessary but expensive imaging, and may eventually turn into plaintiffs. Patients’ lack of health literacy has received much attention. But what about their physicians? Studies show that the majority of doctors are innumerate, that is, they do not understand basic health statistics, such as what the results of screening tests mean. This engenders superfluous treatment, anxiety, and healthcare costs. As a consequence, the ideals of informed consent and shared decision-making remain a pipedream; both doctors and patients can be easily misled by biased information in health brochures and advertisements.

I argue that the problem is not simply in the minds of doctors, but in the way health statistics are framed in journals and brochures. A quick and efficient cure is to teach efficient risk communication that fosters transparency as opposed to confusion. I report studies with doctors, medical students, and patients that show how transparent framing helps them understand health statistics in an hour or two. Raising taxes or rationing care is often seen as the only viable alternative to exploding health care costs. Yet there is a third option: by promoting health literacy, better care is possible for less money.

 

 

Major Topics: Risk Communication

 

 

About the Presenter:  

Gerd Gigerenzer, long-time director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, is director of the Harding Center for Risk Literacy at the University of Potsdam, partner of Simply Rational – The Institute for Decisions, and vice-president of the European Research Council (ERC). He is a former Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago and John M. Olin Distinguished Visiting Professor, School of Law at the University of Virginia. In addition, he is a Member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, the German Academy of Sciences and an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.

He was awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Basel and the Open University of the Netherlands and is a Batten Fellow at the Darden Business School, University of Virginia.

Awards for Gigerenzer’s work include the AAAS Prize for the best article in the behavioral sciences, the Association of American Publishers Prize for the best book in the social and behavioral sciences, the German Psychology Award, and the Communicator Award of the German Research Foundation.

His award-winning popular books Calculated Risks, Gut Feelings, Risk Savvy, and How To Stay Smart In A Smart World have been translated into more than 20 languages. His academic books include Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart, Rationality for Mortals, Simply Rational, and Bounded Rationality (with Reinhard Selten, a Nobel Laureate in economics). In Better Doctors, Better Patients, Better Decisions (with Sir Muir Gray) he shows how better informed doctors and patients can improve healthcare while reducing costs.

Together with the Bank of England, he is working on the project “Simple heuristics for a safer world.” He has trained U.S. federal judges, German physicians, and international top managers in decision-making and understanding risks and uncertainties.

The Swiss Duttweiler Institute has distinguished Gigerenzer as one of the top 100 Global Thought Leaders worldwide.