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

Answer:

A measure of exposure-disease association one could use is the odds ratio (OR)

Step-by-step explanation:

An Odds ratio (OR) is a statistical measure quantifying the level of association between two events such as an exposure and an outcome

The odds ratio gives the probability of outcome where there is a given amount of exposure

We have the table;

$\begin{array}{ccc}&Developed \ lung \ cancer& Did \ not \ develop \ lung \ cancer\\Smokers&50&350\\Non-smokers&10&590\end{array}$

The odds ratio = (The number of smokers with the lung-cancer)/(The number of non-smokers with lung-cancer) ÷ (The number of smokers smokers without long cancer).(The number of non-smokers without long cancer)

∴ OR = (50/10) ÷ (350/590) = 59/7 = 8.$\overline{428571}$ ≈ 8.4

Therefore, a smoker is approximately 8.4 times more likely to develop lung cancer than a non-smoker.