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Public Health & Epidemiology vocabulary · Bias, Causation and Data Analysis

Relative risk

Meaning in public health & epidemiology, with examples

nounCommon term

In public health & epidemiology, relative risk means: The risk of an outcome in an exposed group divided by the risk in an unexposed group; a value of 2 means the exposed group has twice the risk.

In Turkish: göreceli risk, rölatif risk, risk oranı

How it is used

Also called the risk ratio (RR) and calculated in cohort studies and trials. A value of 1 means no difference; below 1 suggests a protective effect. Absolute risk should be reported too, because a doubled risk of a very rare event is still small.

Example sentences

  1. In our cohort, night-shift workers had a relative risk of 1.4 for type 2 diabetes.

  2. The headline said the risk had doubled, but the relative risk hid a tiny absolute difference.

Common collocations

  • relative risk of
  • risk ratio
  • absolute risk
  • relative risk reduction
  • odds ratioA measure of association that compares the odds of an exposure among cases with the odds among controls, or the odds of an outcome in two groups.
  • cohort studyAn observational study that follows a group of people over time, comparing those with and without an exposure to see who develops a disease or outcome.
  • confidence intervalA range of values around an estimate that shows how precise it is; a 95% confidence interval is calculated so that, if a study were repeated many times, 95% of such intervals would contain the true value.
  • risk factorA characteristic, behaviour or exposure that increases the chance of developing a disease or health problem, such as smoking, high blood pressure or poor housing.

More terms: Bias, Causation and Data Analysis

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This page explains English vocabulary for learners. It is not medical advice.