Thanks for this. I did check out a few of your videos, and always learn a lot from them.

I could easily do a few thousand words on why it's important to balance consideration of relative vs. absolute risk for a particular activity. My own field (mental health) is replete with well and not-so-well intentioned quackery and wicked science-- why compare the efficacy of SSRIs to placebo, instead of to other drugs or treatments that many of us fell are far safer and more effective. How could that possibly useful?

I often think of the years I spent arguing with my doctor about whether or not I should be skiing while I was taking blood thinners-- and generally, she was referencing the increase in absolute risk, which we both agreed was quite significant. And for a few years, I didn't ski or body board.

But during one appointment shortly after her brother died, her perspective shifted abruptly from absolute to relative risk. Right in the middle of our usual debate, she suddenly threw up her hands and said, "Well, let's get real here. If we consider all the hours you spend in your car versus the few hours ever year you spend on the mountain, driving in Los Angeles is far more dangerous for someone on blood thinners than skiing. So how about you get back on the mountain, only never when it's crowded, never when conditions are bad, and never at night?"

What was interesting about the intervention: This helped me become a better skier, because I stopped just skiing when it was convenient, and did so only when it was safer, which also meant under circumstances when I could really work on my form. But perhaps even more importantly, I became a much more careful driver.

So at the end of the day, my absolute risk probably wound up being lower after she let me resume skiing.