Week 1 Info

preliminary, humans, ethical

Animal studies: ____________________ information for designing and implementing human studies, research that cannot be done with _______, drawbacks -- results may not apply directly to humans; __________ implications of animal studies.

population

Another great question is if the results would translate to a different ______________.

bias

Any factor, recognized or not, that distorts the findings of a study; in research studies, can influence the observations, results, and conclusions of the study and make them less accurate or believable.

dependent

As the scientist changes the independent variable, they observe what happens -- this is the ___________________ variable.

ecological

Assess the rate of a disease outcome in relation to population-level factors.

not invented here

Bright spots solve the "____ ___________ _____" problem.

statistical significance

Calculation of the probability that an observed effect in a research study is occurring because of chance, typically expressed as a P-value.

valid, reliable

Double-blind, placebo-controlled study: most likely to produce ______, ____________ data.

primary, original

Empirical research is also called ________ research or __________ research.

primary

Empirical research is also called ________ research.

testing

Empirical research is research that involves some type of ________.

collected, analyzed

Empirical research: The scientists DID something -- __________ and ___________ new data in some way.

prospective, retrospective

Epidemiological studies can be ___________________ or ____________________.

observational, nutritional habits, disease trends, health phenomena

Epidemiological studies: Also known as _____________________ studies -- involve assessing _______________ ______, _________ ______, or other ______ _______________ of large populations.

cross-sectional

Examine associations at a single point in time to assess prevalence of exposure to a risk factor or disease outcome.

case-control

Follow specific groups of people, cases vs. controls for a certain outcome, who differ only by exposure to a risk factor.

cohort

Follows a group of people who share common characteristics and assess whether exposure to a certain risk factor leads to a certain outcome.

.05

Generally, a p value less than _____ is considered statistically significant.

control, life spans, in-vivo, in-vitro

Human studies: difficult to _______ for all of the variables, humans have long _____ ______, "___-_____" or "___-______."

talk the talk

If you read and thoroughly digest a good review article, you should be able to "_____ ____ _____" about a given topic.

placebo

Imitation treatment that has no scientifically recognized therapeutic value -- all known as psychosomatic effect.

randomized controlled trials (RCT), intervention studies, case reports, expert opinion

In the hierarchy of evidence, the strongest evidence results from _____________ _____________ ______ and __________________ ________; by comparison, weaker evidence results from ______ _________ and _______ ___________.

analysis paralysis

In tough times, the Rider sees problems everywhere, and "__________ _____________" often kicks in.

research protocol, letter to editor/commentary, consensus reports, position papers, practice guidelines

Misc. articles -- _________ ___________, _______ ___ _______/_________________, _____________ ________, _________ _______, and _________ _______________.

blinding

Neither researchers nor participants know which group is really getting the treatment; helps prevent the researchers from seeing only the results they want to see.

control

One good question to ask of science studies is what did they ________ for?

quack

One who talks pretentiously without the sound knowledge of the subject discussed.

peer-reviewed scientific journals

Our body of evidence comes from published research in _____-____________ _____________ __________.

summary, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, references

Primary or empirical research articles will usually contain __________ or _________, ____________________, __________ section, ________, _______________, and __________________.

recent, cutting edge

Primary research articles are the best way to access the most ________, "_________ _____" research and authoritative information about older research.

editors

Publications that don't use peer review rely on the judgment of ________ to determine whether an article is acceptable for publication or not.

abstract, introduction, materials, methods, results, discussion, references

Published research follows the same format typically: ________, _____________________, ___________ and _________, ________, _______________, and _______________.

fraud

Quackery can be _______ -- intentionally spreading misinformation in order to gain something (money, fame, etc.).

language, scientific evidence

Quackery happens because of our _____________, or because we think we know something, but it's not actually based on _______________ _______________.

effectiveness, safety

Quackery promotes ideas or methods without scientific evidence of ____________________ or _________.

technical note

Report on a new or improved method in the specific scientific field.

hot topic

Report on a study that is not complete at time of publication; because the study topic is so ground-breaking or important to the field, the journal will allow publication of the preliminary results.

black or white, time, conflicting, proves, safe, effective, dose, length of time

Research is not ______ ___ _______, takes ______, can be _______________, rarely "_______," but adds to our body of evidence, and tries to determine is it _____ AND _____________ (_____ and _______ ___ _____ must be considered).

overview

Review articles will provide an _____________ of a topic rather than discuss new research that was conducted.

meta-analysis, systematic reviews, review

Review studies include _____-___________, _________________ ________, and ________.

diagnostic trial

Screen a particular type of person or group of people and follow a pre-defined intervention plan.

review article

Sometimes called literature reviews, systematic reviews, or meta-analyses; an attempt by one or more writers to sum up the current state of the research on a particular topic.

industry interest piece

Summary of the work conducted in a study and discusses recommendations (resulting from the research work) that may be helpful to a specific scientific industry; does not include a detailed account of the study.

direct the rider, motivate the elephant, shape the path

The basic three-part framework for change is _______ ____ ______, ____________ ____ _____________, and _______ ____ ______.

variables, independent variable

The changing items are ____________: an ______________________ _________ is the one that is changed by the scientist.

validity

The degree to which a study accurately reflects or assesses the specific concept that the researcher is attempting to measure; a method can be reliable, consistently measuring the same thing, but not this.

repeatable

The experiment must be __________________, so other researchers can obtain similar results.

reliability

The extent to which a measure, procedure or instrument yields the same result on repeated trials.

full-length research paper

The majority of articles published in scientific journals; include presentation of relevance for a specific study, methods used to perform the study, presentation of results gathered, and a discussion of conclusions about the study.

weak, strong

There are levels of evidence, from ______ to ________.

causation

Two variables are related in this way if changes in the value of one cause the other to change; two variables can be associated without having this type of relation, and even if two variables do have this type of relation, their correlation can be small or zero.

clinical trial

Use a particular type of person or group of people and follow a predefined intervention plan.

preventative trial

Use healthy individuals to assess illness prevention via an intervention.

letter to the editor

Usually has a short word limit (~300 words) and reflects topics of concern for the readers; may include corrections made to articles after publication or even rebuttals from disagreeing scientists.

quality, set up, conducted, relevance, appropriateness

When an article is submitted to a peer reviewed journal, the editors send it out to other experts in the same field to get their opinion on the ________ of the research, how well the research was _____ ____ and _________________, its _______________ to the field, its _____________________________ for the journal, etc.

study design

When examining the strength of scientific evidence, a number of factors come into play -- of the most important factors, however, is ______ ________.

prove

When two items are correlated, it does not "_______" anything.

publication, revision, rejection

With peer reviewing, a number of recognized researchers in the field will read and evaluate a manuscript and recommend __________________, ______________, or _______________ of the manuscript.

methods, results, discussion

With published empirical research, it will contain a _________ section, ________ section, and a _________________ (among other sections).

invited review

Written by authors suggested by journal editors and usually summarizes a specific scientific topic or recent symposia.

peer review

_____ _______ is a process that scientific journals use to ensure the articles they publish represent the best scholarly research information currently available.

case control

_____ ________ studies are epidemiological studies done on a smaller scale -- compare a group of individuals with a particular condition to a similar group without this condition.

RCT, double blinded, prospective, cohort, clinical trial, cross-sectional, case report, expert opinion

_____, _______ _________ > _______________, ________ > __________ ______ > ______-____________ > _____ _______ > _______ __________.

clinical trials

_________ _______ are controlled experiments -- experimental group receives the intervention; control group is not given the intervention.

positive

_________ correlation = when one goes up, the other goes up.

negative

___________ correlation = when one goes up, the other goes down.

empirical research

_____________ _____________ simply means they are describing new research that they have conducted -- the article will describe how they did the research and what they found once they finished doing the study.

controlled

______________ variables are items that the scientist wants to remain constant.

confounding variable

An unforeseen, and unaccounted-for variable that jeopardizes reliability and validity of an experiment's outcome.

relative risk

A comparison of the risk of a particular event for different groups of people; usually used to estimate exposure to something that could affect health.

statistically significant, important, large

A finding that is "__________________ ___________________" means that it is likely not caused by chance -- not to be confused with "_______________" or "______."

correlation

A measure of linear association between two (ordered) lists; two variables can be strongly so without having any causal relationship, and two variables can have a causal relationship and yet be not so.

association

A relationship; in research studies, means that two characteristics are related so that if one changes, the other changes in a predictable way; does not necessarily mean that one variable causes the other.

peer review, replicated

Accurate nutrition/health information is a result of significant scientific agreement from studies that have withstood _____ ________ and can be _________________.

body of evidence

All research contributes to the _____ ___ ___________, even if the hypothesis is not supported.

experiment

An _______________ is simply a way to determine if a change to one item causes a predictable change in another.