Transcript of “Efficacy vs. Effectiveness”
Hey there, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Sarah calling from West Lafayette, Indiana.
Hey, Sarah, we’re glad to have you. What’s up?
So I am a psychology major, so I have to read and write a lot of papers that will evaluate what I would always call the efficacy of a treatment.
But there’s a lot of people that say effectiveness.
So I’m wondering what the difference is between those words, because I always use the word efficacy, but then I hear other people say effectiveness.
So someone has to be wrong.
Okay.
This is a really good question, particularly because of what you’re studying.
So you’re studying?
Psychology, yeah.
And the people who are using effectiveness are?
Like clinical psychologists that are studying, like, what I would say, the efficacy of, like, a different therapeutic method or something like that.
And so they’re using the word effectiveness in their writing or in professional papers?
Yes.
Okay.
That will be like the title of the paper.
Okay.
We’re getting right to the heart of it because I think the difference here is whether or not we’re talking about clinical trials or we’re talking about public health.
So if efficacy is mostly about clinical trials, so we might talk about a vaccine’s efficacy.
And then we’ll talk about, say, a vaccine once it’s used, after it’s rolled out.
So it’s performance when it’s rolled out because people don’t, say, store it properly or ship it properly or they miss their second dose or they just don’t use it correctly.
And so then we talk about effectiveness.
And so efficacy is about under controlled conditions and effectiveness is about non-controlled conditions.
And so that’s where you run up against differences generally.
Affocacy tends to pair with words like controlled conditions, specialized evaluations, clinical trial, treatment.
Effectiveness tends to pair with words like applied settings, everyday performance, policy, strategy, outreach, enforcement, prevention effort.
Gotcha.
You see where we’re going with this?
Yeah, okay. That makes a lot of sense, which that implies that I’ve also been using it wrong for a couple years now.
Okay.
I appreciate that.
What’s encouraging here is that, A, you’re recognizing that you can change the way you use the word, and B, you’re still getting your degree, so you’re learning.
And that’s okay. So when we’re in the process of learning, we’re not done yet, so we’re still on our way. So great.
Yeah, awesome. Well, thank you so much.
Yeah, our pleasure.
Thanks for calling.
I never thought about this, Sarah.
Right?
It’s great.
They’re so similar.
I saw the word one more time, and I said, you know what?
I have to call.
We’re glad you did.
There’s just a ton of these words where we have near synonyms, and they’re just not synonyms, you know?
Well, would you say they’re wrong-wrong or just used, you know?
Well, this is one of those cases, Martha and Sarah, where in a field we have a professional use.
And outside of a field, if you’re not dealing with an academic paper, which is why I asked about academic papers, it doesn’t matter very much.
You know, if I’m just discussing this on Facebook, it doesn’t matter quite so much.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Well, Sarah, thanks for the question.
Yeah, that’s awesome.
Okay, good to know.
All right.
Keep kicking butt out there and good luck with the degree, all right?
Yeah, good luck with your studies.
Take care now.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
