Question

Researchers studied the effect of folic acid in the diet vs. birth defects in pregnant women. A large group of women were randomly split into two groups. One group of 2701 women took daily multivitamins containing 0.8 mg of folic acid while the other group of 2052 women received only trace elements. Major birth defects occurred in 35 cases when the women took folic acid while 47 cases occurred when women did not get folic acid.

a. Atthe1%levelofsignificancedothedataprovidesufficientevidenceto conclude that women who take folic acid have a lesser risk of birth defects? State your hypotheses and conclusions.

b. Isthisadesignedexperimentoranobservationalstudy?

Answer 1

From the given information,

Let,

P1 be the proportion of women who take folic acid.

P2 be the proportion of women who do not take folic acid.

Hence,

Hypothesis:

Null hypothesis (Ho): P1=P2

Alternative hypothesis (Ha): P1<P2

By using calculator,

P-value= 0.0045

As P-value < level of significance (0.01)

Reject null hypothesis.

Hence,

We can conclude that,

At the1% level of significance data provides sufficient evidence to conclude that women who take folic acid have a lesser risk of birth defects.

b. It is designed experiment.

Thank you.