How to Interpret and Calculate “X Times More Likely” Statistics

People who smoke are 15–30x more likely to get lung cancer. Black men and women are 1.9x more likely to die from a COVID-19 related reason than their white counterparts.

Chances are, you’ve seen one of these “x times more likely” claims on a headline or in a newspaper article. While many of these figures are well researched and informative, there are definitely sources that use odds ratios for sensationalism and fear mongering (i.e. This is Where You’re 19 Times More Likely to get Coronavirus 🙄). Today, I will give you a…