Topic
Science communication
Explaining medical science clearly and honestly, and spotting where the communication of research goes wrong.
This page collects every article by Dr. Damon Tojjar in this topic. For all topics see browse by topic, and for the source-anchored record see damontojjar.com/record.
Articles in this topic (11)
- Why '1 in 100' Beats '1 Percent': Communicating Risk Clearly
The way a risk is written changes how accurately people read it, and "one in 100" is usually read more accurately than "1 percent." A natural frequency ties a...
- High, Moderate, Low, Very Low: How GRADE Rates the Certainty of Evidence
GRADE sorts medical evidence into four tiers, high, moderate, low, and very low certainty, based on how confident we can be that a study's effect estimate reflects...
- How a Study Becomes a Misleading Headline
Most misleading health headlines are not invented by journalists. The exaggeration usually enters earlier, in the press release that a university or journal issues...
- How to Read a Cochrane Plain-Language Summary
A Cochrane plain-language summary follows a fixed skeleton: a question-shaped title, two to three key messages, what was studied, what the authors did, the main...
- How to Read a Health Headline Without Getting Fooled
A health headline is written to be clicked, not to be careful. So before it changes how you eat, sleep, or worry, run four quick checks: What kind of study is...
- The Art of Explaining Risk Clearly
Explaining risk clearly is mostly a design problem, not a math problem. The same true number can leave someone frightened, reassured, or simply confused depending...
- The Nocebo Effect: How Expecting Harm Can Produce It
The nocebo effect is the placebo effect's mirror imageThe nocebo effect occurs when a negative expectation about a treatment produces real, measurable harm on its...
- The Placebo Effect, Explained Honestly
The placebo effect is the change people genuinely notice after receiving a treatment that has no active ingredient. It comes from expectation, the ritual of being...
- What Makes Science Communication Trustworthy
Trustworthy science communication has a texture you can learn to feel. It tells you how sure it is, and it is honest when the answer is "not very." It shows you...
- Why Debunking Often Fails: The Continued Influence Effect
Correcting a false claim feels like it should settle the matter. It usually does not. Across four decades of experiments, people who read a clear retraction,...
- Why Public Trust in Science Is Earned, Not Assumed
Public trust in science is not a resource the field can draw on by default. It is built the same way credibility is built anywhere, through work done in the open,...