PHLB09H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Confounding, Randomized Controlled Trial, Ice Cream
Document Summary
Prospective (study going forward in time) experiments on human subjects used to evaluate the safety or efficacy of a medical treatment. Disadvantage : alters how people act because this study is able to change what someone might have done which introduces ethical concerns. Accuracy of reported information (past) some people can be poor at recalling. Confounding factors/variable : third variable that affect dependent and independent variable. People who happen to eat many apples might have numerous other habits connected to a low blood pressure. They might have a diet that is generally better. In a retrospective study, it is difficult to separate correlation from causation. Ice cream sales and drowning but both can be explained by heat / temperature rising. In a prospective study, the difficulty can be avoided through the randomized controlled. Study (rct) able us to separate causal and correlation.
