The answer depends on what your goals are. If you are simply trying to put all the hazard ratios on a similar scale, then I often use the HR comparing risk of a subject at the 25th percentile to one at the 75th percentile. This has already been suggested by David W. But this is not perfect. The key issue is that a definition of "important" is slippery. Is a risk factor that increases your death rate 3-fold but only appears in 10% of the subjects more or less important than one that confers a 50% increase of risk but in 1/2 the subjects? (Smoking confers a major increase in the risk of a rare disease -lung cancer- and a more modest increase in the risk of heart disease. The second generates more excess deaths than the first. Which to highlight is an old debate in public health.) Frank's answer went more to the issue of statistical importance, which is a yet another dimension. Terry T.