What's the Risk: Differentiating Risk Ratios, Odds Ratios, and Hazard Ratios?

Andrew George; Thor S Stead; Latha Ganti

doi:10.7759/cureus.10047

What's the Risk: Differentiating Risk Ratios, Odds Ratios, and Hazard Ratios?

Cureus. 2020 Aug 26;12(8):e10047. doi: 10.7759/cureus.10047.

Authors

Andrew George¹, Thor S Stead², Latha Ganti^{3

4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Emergency Medicine, Brown University, Providence, USA.
² Emergency Medicine, Warren Alpert Medical School, Providence, USA.
³ Emergency Medicine, University of Central Florida College of Medicine, Orlando, USA.
⁴ Emergency Medicine, Envision Physician Services, Nashville, USA.
⁵ Emergency Medical Services, Polk County Fire Rescue, Bartow, USA.

Abstract

Risk ratios, odds ratios, and hazard ratios are three common, but often misused, statistical measures in clinical research. In this paper, the authors dissect what each of these terms define, and provide examples from the medical literature to illustrate each of these statistical measures. Finally, the correct and incorrect methods to use these measures are summarized.

Keywords: hazard ratio; odds ratio; risk ratio.

Publication types

Review