Very misleading title and article. They are attempting to blend two different studies measuring two different things.

1--- Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray in AlaskaThe high success rate for bear spray is against bears that were nearby, not necessarily attacking or charging. Most were just curious or looking for food. If you look at the pepper spray success rate for the 9 charging griz attacks in that study, you find only 3 times that it worked. 33% success

2---The firearm study Efficacy of firearms for bear deterrence in Alaska was studying many cases where the bear was already wounded, mostly hunting situations, and they didn't increase their database with other types of incidents.
They said-
"First, because bear-inflicted injuries are closely covered by the media, we likely did not miss many records where people were injured. Therefore, even if more incidents had been made available through the Alaska DLP database, we anticipate that these would have contributed few, if any, additional human injuries. Second, including more DLP records would have increased the number of bears killed by firearms. Finally, additional records would have likely improved firearm success rates from those reported here, but to what extent is unknown."

Every year i come across wolf, bear or mtn lion where I hike, hunt and camp. Sometimes by myself or with my dog, sometimes with children. I am not going to be drowning or falling or struck by lightning in most places. More likely to twist an ankle or get turned around, but also the possibility of animal
problems too. When I lived in California I prepared for other common dangers, avalanche, wildfire, rockfall, snowstorms, stream crossings etc.

To each his own hike.