Educational
Decisions about whether to use an intervention should be informed by the balance between the potential benefits and the potential harms, costs and other advantages and disadvantages of the approach.
This balance often depends on the baseline risk (i.e. the likelihood of an individual experiencing an undesirable event), or on the consequences of not intervening. The balance between the advantages and disadvantages of an intervention is more likely to favour an intervention if the consequences of not doing anything are worse.
The balance also depends on how much weight people give to the various advantages and disadvantages. Different people may value outcomes differently and sometimes make different decisions because of this.
BEWARE of claims that only talk about the advantages of interventions but ignore potential disadvantages.
REMEMBER: Always consider the balance between advantages and disadvantages of interventions.