Question

Researchers prospectively follow a group of 100 vegetarians and 200 non-vegetarians. After 30 years of follow-up, 8 of the vegetarians and 20 of the non-vegetarians develop heart disease. The 95% confidence interval on the relative risk of 0.8 ranges from 0.6 to 0.9. Interpret the relative risk and the 95% confidence interval.

Answer 1

Relative risk is 0.80

This relative risk shows that the risk of outcome is reduced by 20%, i.e. we can interpret that a non vegetarian person will have 20% less chances of heart disease as compared to vegetarian person.

Confidence interval is given for relative risk, ranging from 0.6 to 0.90.

So, we can interpret that we are 95% confident that the relative risk for the given study for comparison between vegetarian and non vegetarian is between 0.6 and 09