From Ballpark to Courtroom: How Baseball Explains Risk Assessment

Just as baseball provides fans with endless topics for discussion and debate, risk assessment provides mental health professionals with limitless questions about what factors really matter and how to sort through them. This article uses our national pastime to illustrate types of risk assessment and to explain how risk assessment tools apply statistical concepts. We also discuss how mental health professionals can communicate risk judgments in court and respond to challenges about admissibility of their testimony. [ Psychiatr Ann . 2017;47(9):443–448.]