In prescribing medications or other treatments, health practitioners consider both the potential benefits and the potential harms of intervention. The benefits of treatment (presented as absolute risk reductions) will generally be greater in patients at higher risk of adverse outcomes than in patients at lower risk of adverse outcomes. The point at which these benefits are compelling enough to warrant treatment will depend not only upon the magnitude of expected benefit but the possibility of treatment harms. This tip explores how trial data rendered as risk differences can provide a basis for health care practitioners to balance the benefits and harms of therapy with their patients.