A study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine (Vol. 318, No. 4) sought to determine whether aspirin is effective in preventing heart attacks. It involved 22,000 male physicians considered to be at risk for heart attacks. The men were divided into a treatment group that took aspirin and a control group that did not. The results were so convincing in favor of the benefits of aspirin that the experiment was stopped for ethical reasons before it was completed, and the subjects were informed of the results. Many news reports led with the headline that taking aspirin can help prevent heart attacks. Analyze this headline according to Guideline 1.

Data From Guideline 1:-

The first thing you should do when you hear about a statistical study is figure out what it was all about; that is, get a big picture view of the study that will allow you to consider its results in an appropriate context. A good starting point for gaining a big picture view comes in trying to answer these basic questions:

• What was the goal of the study?

• What was the population under study? Was the population clearly and appropriately defined?

• Was the study an observational study, an experiment, or a meta-analysis? If it was an observational study, was it retrospective? If it was an experiment, was it single- or double-blind, and were the treatment and control groups properly randomized? Given the goal, was the type of study appropriate?