[djoldman]

When it comes time to decide whether or not to take action and what that action should be, I'd say that the total potential risk reduction is more important.

One should weigh the cost of the proposed intervention in time/money/other_expense against the potential benefit. The potential benefit is the total reduction in risk * the magnitude of the unwanted outcome.

40% is less relevant.

[KempyKolibri]

The thing is, the 0.08% doesn't capture the total potential risk reduction - only the risk during the timeframe of the study (8 years in this case). Where we're talking about exposures and outcomes that stack over time (exposure to LDL and heart disease being a classic one) the absolute risk is, in my opinion, more misleading than the relative risk.

For example you see this oft-quoted stat about "statins only increase lifespan by 3 days" based off relatively short RCTs, but this doesn't capture the effect of statin use over decades, which is where we see much, much bigger gains.

It seems to me that both RR and AR are things to take into consideration and we have to be mindful of the shortcomings of each.