Which performance metric is maximized when the false negative rate is minimized?

Which performance metric is maximized when the false negative rate is minimized?

• A. NPV
• B. Specificity
• C. Sensitivity
• D. PPV

Answer: (C)

Minimizing the false negative rate means you miss fewer people who actually have the condition. The metric that increases when you correctly identify most of the diseased is sensitivity, defined as the proportion of true positives among those who truly have the disease. Since false negative rate and sensitivity are complements (FNR = 1 − sensitivity), reducing FNR directly raises sensitivity. Specificity, PPV, and NPV depend on other aspects such as correctly identifying non-diseased individuals and the disease prevalence, so they aren’t maximized simply by lowering the false negative rate.

Minimizing the false negative rate means you miss fewer people who actually have the condition. The metric that increases when you correctly identify most of the diseased is sensitivity, defined as the proportion of true positives among those who truly have the disease. Since false negative rate and sensitivity are complements (FNR = 1 − sensitivity), reducing FNR directly raises sensitivity. Specificity, PPV, and NPV depend on other aspects such as correctly identifying non-diseased individuals and the disease prevalence, so they aren’t maximized simply by lowering the false negative rate.