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How old are you, really? Communicating chronic risk through ‘effective age’ of your body and organs

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, August 2016
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • Among the highest-scoring outputs from this source (#20 of 2,139)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (95th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (93rd percentile)

Mentioned by

blogs
1 blog
twitter
75 X users

Citations

dimensions_citation
54 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
50 Mendeley
citeulike
1 CiteULike
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Title
How old are you, really? Communicating chronic risk through ‘effective age’ of your body and organs
Published in
BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, August 2016
DOI 10.1186/s12911-016-0342-z
Pubmed ID
Authors

David Spiegelhalter

Abstract

In communicating chronic risks, there is increasing use of a metaphor that can be termed 'effective-age': the age of a 'healthy' person who has the same risk profile as the individual in question. Popular measures include 'real-age', 'heart-age', 'lung-age' and so on.Here we formally define this concept, and illustrate its use in a variety of areas. We explore conditions under which the years lost or gained that are associated with exposure to risk factors depends neither on current chronological age, nor the period over which the risk is defined. These conditions generally hold for all-cause adult mortality, which enables a simple and vivid translation from hazard-ratios to years lost or gained off chronological age. Finally we consider the attractiveness and impact of this concept.Under reasonable assumptions, the risks associated with specific behaviours can be expressed in terms of years gained or lost off your effective age. The idea of effective age appears a useful and attractive metaphor to vividly communicate risks to individuals.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 75 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 50 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United Kingdom 1 2%
United States 1 2%
Switzerland 1 2%
Unknown 47 94%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 12 24%
Researcher 11 22%
Student > Master 6 12%
Student > Bachelor 4 8%
Other 3 6%
Other 8 16%
Unknown 6 12%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 13 26%
Psychology 7 14%
Mathematics 4 8%
Computer Science 3 6%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 3 6%
Other 9 18%
Unknown 11 22%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 53. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 10 August 2023.
All research outputs
#796,112
of 25,376,646 outputs
Outputs from BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making
#20
of 2,139 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#15,711
of 377,733 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making
#4
of 43 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,376,646 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 96th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,139 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 5.3. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 377,733 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 43 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 93% of its contemporaries.