Question

Be sure to answer all parts of each prompt in detailed and complete sentences.   

Question 1:  Connection between cell phones and brain cancer?

One study of cell phones and the risk of brain cancer looked at a group of 469 people who have brain cancer. The investigators matched each cancer patient with a person of the same age, sex, and race who did not have brain cancer, then asked about the use of cell phones.4 Result: “Our data suggest that the use of handheld cellular phones is not associated with risk of brain cancer.”

(a) Is this an observational study or an experiment? Justify your answer.

(b) Based on this study, would you conclude that cell phones do not increase the risk of brain cancer? Why or why not?

Answer 1

(a) Is this an observational study or an experiment? Justify your answer.

This is an observational study since in this case we are observing the effect that cell phones have on risk of brain cancer. Here we have kept all of the variables constant by using the matched pairs and then only observing the effect of cell phones on brain cancer.

b) Based on this study, would you conclude that cell phones do not increase the risk of brain cancer? Why or why not?

It has been stated in results that the data suggest that the use of handheld cellular is not associated with risk of brain cancer. Therefore we will conclude that the cell phones do not increase the risk of brain cancer.