An investigator wants to test whether exposure to secondhand

An investigator wants to test whether exposure to second-hand smoke before 1 year of life is associated with development of childhood asthma (defined as asthma diagnosed before 5 years of age). Give two possible study designs and indicate the pros and cons of each. Then, provide your recommendation for the most efficient design. Which of the following statistics is most resistant to the inclusion of outliers in a dataset?

Solution

Resistance: a measure\'s resistance is based on whether the measure is affected by extreme values or not. If the measure is not sensitive to the influence of extreme values, it is resistant. If extreme values heavily affect the measure, it is not resistant.

1. Resistant measures: Median, IQR

2. Nonresistant measures: Mean, Standard deviation