Question

A cohort study of smoking and lung cancer was conducted in a small island population. There were a total of 1,000 people in the study, and the study was conducted over a ten year period. Four hundred were smokers and 600 were not. Of the smokers, fifty developed lung cancer. Of the non-smokers, 10 developed lung cancer. In order to measure the strength of association between smoking and lung cancer in this population, which measure of exposure-disease association would you use

Answer 1

The measure of exposure-disease association that would be used in this study is the relative risk or the odds ratio. We can calculate the relative risk by comparing the incidence of lung cancer in smokers and non-smokers. Similarly, the odds ratio can be calculated by comparing the odds of developing lung cancer in both groups.

Step-by-step explanation:

The measure of exposure-disease association that would be used in this study is the relative risk or the odds ratio.

To calculate the relative risk, we can compare the incidence of lung cancer in smokers to the incidence in non-smokers.

In this case, there were 50 lung cancer cases among the 400 smokers, and 10 lung cancer cases among the 600 non-smokers. The relative risk would be (50/400) divided by (10/600), which is 3.75.

To calculate the odds ratio, we can compare the odds of developing lung cancer in smokers to the odds in non-smokers.

The odds of lung cancer in smokers would be 50/350, and the odds in non-smokers would be 10/590. The odds ratio would be (50/350) divided by (10/590), which is 8.43.

Both of these measures can help assess the strength of the association between smoking and lung cancer in this population.