Number needed to harm

In medicine, the number needed to harm (NNH) is an epidemiological measure that indicates how many persons on average need to be exposed to a risk factor over a specific period to cause harm in an average of one person who would not otherwise have been harmed. It is defined as the inverse of the absolute risk increase, and computed as ${\displaystyle 1/(I_{e}-I_{u})}$, where ${\displaystyle I_{e}}$ is the incidence in the treated (exposed) group, and ${\displaystyle I_{u}}$ is the incidence in the control (unexposed) group. Intuitively, the lower the number needed to harm, the worse the risk factor, with 1 meaning that every exposed person is harmed.

NNH is similar to number needed to treat (NNT), where NNT usually refers to a positive therapeutic result and NNH to a detrimental effect or risk factor.

Marginal metrics:

• NNT for an additional beneficial outcome (NNTB)
• NNT for an additional harmful outcome (NNTH)

are also used.