In March 2005, the New England Journal of Medicine pub- lished the results of a

Question

In March 2005, the New England Journal of Medicine pub- lished the results of a 10-year clinical trial of low-dose aspirin therapy for the cardiovascular health of women (Time, March 21, 2005). The study was based on 40,000 healthy women, most of whom were in their 40s and 50s when the trial began. Half of these women were administered 100 mg of aspirin every other day, and the others were given a placebo. Assume that the women were assigned randomly to these two groups.

a. Is this an observational study or a designed experiment? Explain.

b. From the information given above, can you determine whether or not this is a double-blind study? Explain. If not, what additional information would you need?

Explanation / Answer

a) This is a designed experiment.

In observational studies, no interventions are made by the researcher. But in this study, the researcher is intervening by providing aspirin to a set of people. Hence, this study will come under the category of designed experiment.

b) This information is not suffient to know if this is a double-blind study.

Here, we are not sure if the treatment groups or the doctors are aware of what treatment htey are getting or giving. If the procedure of distribution of aspirin and placebo is known, that is if we know wheteher the doctors or test subjects are aware of what they are taking, we can say that the study is double blinded or not. Without this information, we cant draw a valid conclusion.

(A double blind study is the type of study in which neither the researcher nor the subject is not having any idea if the subject is consuming a placebo or not. This types of experiments can reduce bias in the study and placebo efffect)

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