Table 1 Prioritized IHC key concepts in the secondary school resources

1. Treatments can cause harms as well as benefits

2. Large, dramatic effects are rare

3. Personal experiences or anecdotes alone are an unreliable basis for most claims

4. Treatments that are new or technologically impressive may not be better than available alternatives

5. Widely used treatments or those that have been used for decades are not necessarily beneficial or safe

6. Identifying the effects of treatments depends on making comparisons

7. Small studies may be misleading

8. Comparison groups should be as similar as possible

9. Weigh the benefits and savings against the harms and costs of acting or not