Visualizing False Positives In Broad Screening

AlejoHausner writes "To find one terrorist in 3000 people, using a screen that works 90% of the time, you'll end up detaining 300 people, one of whom might be your target. A BBC article asks for an effective way to communicate this clearly. 'Screening for HIV with 99.9% accuracy? Switch it around. Think also about screening the millions of non-HIV people and being wrong about one person in every 1,000.' The problem is important in any area where a less-than-perfect screen is used to detect a rare event in a population. As a recent NYTimes story notes, widespread screening for cancers (except for maybe colon cancer) does more harm than good. How can this counter-intuitive fact be communicated effectively to people unschooled in statistics?"

Comments

I can offer up a nice book on that

[Shivetya]

http://www.amazon.com/Manga-Guide-Statistics-Shin-Takahashi/dp/1593271891

I hate math, always did. I was good at it but just could not stand it. As such I skipped out on about anything math related beyond algebra (college level). Didn't impede my programming ability at all.

Still there are times where I like to learn how stuff works and honestly this series of books, Manga Guide to ......, has given me a quick leg up on a few subjects I would never have gained from traditional text books.