Key Concepts for Critical Thinking about Health Claims

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• Format Texts
• Language/s English
• Duration >15 mins
• Difficulty Intermediate

Key Concepts addressed

• Beware of claims like these
• Check the evidence from treatment comparisons
• Make well-informed treatment choices

Details

There are endless claims about treatments in the mass media, advertisements, and everyday personal communication. Some are true and some are false.

Many are unsubstantiated: we do not know whether they are true or false. Unsubstantiated claims about the effects of treatments often turn out to be wrong.

Consequently, people who believe and act on these claims suffer unnecessarily and waste resources by doing things that do not help and might be harmful, and by not doing things that do help.

The Informed Health Choices (IHC) Key Concepts serve as the basis for developing learning resources to help people understand and apply critical thinking concepts when claims about the effects of treatments (and other interventions) are made, and when they make health choices.