The statistic is relative: "a 53% increase" is relative to some baseline. It does not mean the absolute risk is raised to 53%. Without context these relative f

The statistic is relative: "a 53% increase" is relative to some baseline. It does not mean the absolute risk is raised to 53%. Without context these relative form are meaningless, and they are presented this way annoyingly commonly by media. For example if the baseline absolute risk is 0.0100% then the study suggests the increase would raise that to 0.0153% in absolute terms... and no I do not know what the baseline is, the headline is truly meaningless to me.