An article from the New England Journal of Medicine titled "Number Needed to Treat" explains absolute rates in medical studies. Absolute measures include absolute risk reduction (ARR), number needed to treat (NNT) and number needed to harm (NNH). ARR measures the difference in the observed risk of an event between two interventions. The NNT indicates the number of patients who must be treated to achieve one additional beneficial outcome. NNH similarly measures the number of patients per additional adverse event. These rates are easier to interpret, more clinically meaningful, and less likely to exaggerate differences at low risk of outcome than relative rates. A study analyzing 875 controlled trials in top journals (including NEJM) found that 76 (8.7%) reported at least one NNT, 8 (0.9%) at least one NNH, and 249 (28.5%) at least one ARR. In the 2019 NEJM, NNT was reported in 31 of 115 studies (27%).[2]