Interactive Decisions from CBSSM


By clicking on an interactive decision, you can get hands-on experience with CBSSM's innovative research in behavioral health and medical decision making. Each scenario turns a recent research finding into a decision that a patient or a policy maker might face.

In our interactive decisions, we:
  • replicate actual research surveys
  • display alternative graphical representations of health risks
  • present choices in bioethics
  • explore emotions related to health
  • and much more.

Clinical topics range widely and have included paraplegia, renal disease, immunization, infertility, HIV/AIDS, cancer, women's health, organ transplants, and colostomy.

CBSSM's interactive decisions can be controversial, but they're always stimulating. Read, decide, click - and get a full commentary on the implications of your decisions!

A full archive of our interactive decisions can be found here.

The CBSSM interactive Decision of the Month:

Depicting Risks and Benefits of Medical Treatment

Imagine that you have just been diagnosed with high cholesterol.  You are asked to decide whether or not take a type of drug called a statin to lower your cholesterol.  In order to help you decide, you are given information about the risk and benefits of taking statins.


On the following page, consider 4 different formats for presenting the risks and benefits.   Please answer the following multiple choice question.

The novelty of risk and vaccination intentions

It's 2009.  Early in the year, a 9-year-old girl from California became the first person with a confirmed case of H1N1 ("swine") influenza in the United States.  Shortly thereafter, the U.S. declared a public health emergency and the World Health Organization declared a phase 6 pandemic (the highest level possible).  By September 2009 a vaccination was developed and was available within a month.

You've been following the news about the H1N1 influenza as developments have unfolded throughout the year, and you feel some concern.  You have been wondering about the risk of coming down with the H1N1 flu yourself and have been thinking about whether you should be vaccinated.  Answer the following questions by moving the slider bar.

Informed Consent Document Utilization

What do subjects need to know in order to agree to participate in research?  An informed consent document is assumed to communicate the essential information, but it is not clear how carefully research participants read these documents.