Cancer Risk Messages: Public Health and Economic Welfare

Statements for public health purposes such as “1 in 2 will get cancer by age 85” have appeared in public spaces. The meaning drawn from such statements affects economic welfare, not just public health. Both markets and government use risk information on all kinds of risks, useful information can, in turn, improve economic welfare, however inaccuracy can lower it. We adapt the contingency table approach so that a quoted risk is cross-classified with the states of nature. We show that bureaucratic objective functions regarding the accuracy of a reported cancer risk can then be stated.