Science News (25 January 1995) reported a study on the relationship between levels of radon gas in homes and lung cancer. It was a case-control study, with 538 women with lung cancer and 1183 without lung cancer. The article noted that the average level of radon concentration in the homes of the two groups over a 1-year period was exactly the same. The article also contained the following quote, reporting on an editorial by Jonathan Samet that accompanied the original study:
For the statistical significance needed to assess accurately whether low residential exposures constitute no risk . . . the study would have required many more participants than the number used in this or any other residential- radon study to date. . . . But those numbers may soon become available, he adds, as researchers complete a spate of new studies whose data can be pooled for reanalysis (p. 26).
Write a short report interpreting the quote for someone with no training in statistics.