Odds ratio versus relative risk
Since it is a ratio of ratios, the odds ratio is very difficult to interpret. The relative risk is easier to interpret, so the odds ratio alone is not very helpful. However, there are certain commonly occurring situations in which the estimate of the relative risk is not very good and the odds ratio can be used to approximate the relative risk of the event of interest. The odds ratio should be used as an approximation to the relative risk of the event of interest when both of the following conditions are met:
- The probability of the event of interest is small (<0.1). This condition guarantees that the odds ratio will make a good approximation to the relative risk. In this example, the event of interest is a response to the mailing.
- The design of the study is case control. This condition signals that the usual estimate of the relative risk will likely not be good. A case-control study is retrospective, most often used when the event of interest is unlikely or when the design of a prospective experiment is impractical or unethical.
Since the overall proportion of respondents was 10.6% and the design of the study was not case-control, neither condition is met in this example, so it's safer to report 1.668 as the relative risk, rather than the value of the odds ratio.