Do not assume

“Associated with!”

Just because a link has been made between a treatment and an outcome, it does not mean that the treatment caused the outcome.

Associations or correlations are not evidence of cause and effect. There can be many different explanations for why two factors are associated with one another including chance and coincidence. When associations are made between a factor and the development of a disease/condition, or the use of a treatment being associated with improvement of a condition, we still cannot be sure of the nature of their relationship.

For example, there is an association between ice cream sales and the frequency of shark attacks. However, this does not mean that eating more ice cream will result in someone being attacked by a shark; there is no causative relationship between the two factors.

BEWARE of making clinical decisions based only on associations.

REMEMBER: Consider other possible explanations for the associations being made. Can you be confident of cause and effect based on the information you are given?