Count vs rate statistics: Five traps to avoid.
Count vs rate statistics is the third of five traps that can make your two risk numbers misleading. The others are using someone else's number, mismatched periods, trusting headlines, and treating a blank as zero. Each one has a simple fix.
Whose number and which period.
First, a national layoff rate is not your layoff rate. So if your industry, region or age has its own figure, use it, and note who was measured. Second, a monthly layoff rate is not a multi-year survival figure. Therefore, write the period next to each number.
Count vs rate statistics and headline traps.
"Eighty thousand businesses closed last year" is a count, while "one in three closed" is a rate. So turn both into rates, or say clearly that one is not. These common statistics mistakes also include trusting a headline or video. Instead, cross it out and find the official publication.
The blank that pretends to be zero.
The fifth trap is the one you won't notice. You search, find nothing, and decide your current choice has no risk. However, a blank is not a zero. As a result, knowing how to verify a statistic source matters: write the risk in words and name the publishing office.
Fix count vs rate statistics in your comparison.
Label each of your two numbers as a count or a rate, and convert where you can.
Then write who measured each number, how, when, and over what period.
From the book.
The fifth is the one you won't notice. You search for a while, find nothing, and quietly decide that the thing you're doing instead has no risk at all. A blank is not a zero. If you can't find your number, write the risk in words and write the name of the office that would publish it, because that line still counts.
I Want to Start a Business but I'm a Coward, chapter 1: The safer road
Questions about count vs rate statistics.
What is the difference in count vs rate statistics?
A count says how many, like eighty thousand closures, while a rate says how often, like one in three.
What if I cannot find a number for my risk?
Write the risk in words and the name of the office that would publish it, because that still counts.
Can I use a figure from a video?
Only if you can find who measured it, how and when. Otherwise, look for the official publication.
Read the whole chapter.
This lesson covers one section of chapter 1, “The safer road”. The book goes further, with the full evidence, the stories and every exercise.
Lessons in this chapter.
- 01 9 11 driving deaths: Where fear really moved people.
- 02 Probability neglect: Why vivid fears ignore the odds.
- 03 Panic decisions under pressure: The Irma escape.
- 04 Hidden risks of the safe choice: The 28-hour drive.
- 05 When fear is rational: Ask this question first.
- 06 Compare risk of quitting vs staying: Two numbers.
- 07 Count vs rate statistics: Five traps to avoid.