PART I: Communicating Risk and Benefit in the Medical Community -- Patients, Doctors and Decision-making -- Absolute and Relative Risks -- Communicating health risks to patients and the public -- Erik's Recent Experience with Doctors and a Heart Attack -- Why not all numbers are the same -- Putting BRCTs to use in helping people understand health outcomes -- PART II: Videos to Describe the Utility of BRCTs -- PART III: COVID-19 Communication -- Segue to Part III: BRCTs & COVID-19 -- How important are the number of cases? -- The demographics of COVID-19 -- Why COVID-19 Should Not Have Prevented Colleges (and Elementary and Secondary Schools) from Opening Last Fall -- Nursing homes, the nidus of COVID-19 death -- The use of universal masking -- Communicating about the impact of surges and quarantines -- Communicating about the adverse effects of the cure -- How we communicate about COVID-19 in other countries -- Other viral pandemics with reference to COVID-19 -- A Path Forward: BRCTs for COVID-19 and Beyond.

This book demonstrates how a novel decision-aid, called a Benefit-Risk Characterization Theater (BRCT), can be used to: · Significantly improve accurate communication of health risks from exposure to COVID-19; and · Assess how to best contain and control COVID-19. To date, there have been far-reaching ramifications based on ineffective risk communication when clarifying these health endpoints. A BRCT is a familiar, theatrical chart representation of 1,000 people, with the risks and benefits shown by blackened seats. Since health outcomes can easily be put into such a chart, we show how BRCTs can be used objectively by professionals, the media and lay people. It allows characterization and communication of health benefits and risks of COVID-19 treatment and containment in an undemanding and straightforward way. BRCTs have been successfully used to assist patients in determining: · Their level of acceptable risk of various medical interventions; · If the benefits of intervention outweigh the risks; · Who should make the final decision regarding medical intervention; and · Whether the decision is evidence-based. Written by experts in the field, this book fills in a gap in communication between the medical community, the public and patients. It also provides an area of expertise in communication that is beneficial for medical providers and medical students.