In the United States, mothers who live in poverty generally have babies with lower birthweight than those who do not live in pov
erty. The mean birthweight for babies born in the U.S. to mothers living in poverty is approximately 2800 grams. The CDC carries out a study to test the effectiveness of a new prenatal care program in reducing the number of low birthweight babies born. For the study, 30 mothers, all of whom live in poverty, participate in the program and birthweight data is recorded. Which hypothesis test would be most appropriate for this study?
Based on the given information, the mothers living in poverty in the United States give birth to underweight babies. The average weight of the babies given birth by women living in poverty is 2.8 kg. To examine the efficacy of a novel prenatal care program, a test was conducted by the CDC in which 30 mothers living in poverty and the weights of their babies were recorded.
As the test is conducted in pairs, thus, paired sample t-test would be the appropriate hypothesis test. The paired t-test is performed when the dependent variable is measure spontaneously. In the given case, the women participating in the program and the number of babies with less birth weight are examined in pairs. Thus, as the sample are paired together, the correct answer would be paired sample t-test.
