Evaluating Data on Lung Disease (AQA A Level Biology)

A risk factor is any factor that correlates with (is linked to) an increased chance of suffering from a particular condition or disease

• Example of risk factors for the incidence of lung disease is exposure to smoking and pollution

The incidence of disease describes the number of cases of a disease that occur in within a particular group of people within a given time

There are different types of studies that have been done to investigate the effect of risk factors on the incidence of lung disease in humans

Prospective studies involve collecting data as it becomes available

• It can be beneficial in that more accurate data can be obtained

• It can be highly time-consuming

Retrospective studies involve collecting data from the past

• The data collected may be unreliable as people forget details or alter them

• Results can be obtained more rapidly

Collecting data for studies from the population can be very difficult for a number of reasons

• Controlled experiments where only one variable is investigated can’t be carried out on humans due to ethical implications. For example, it would be immoral to ask a random group of people to smoke exactly 10 cigarettes every day for 10 years, while the control group is banned from smoking

• Finding people with sufficiently similar lifestyles can be difficult

• Long term studies with multiple follow-ups take a lot of time and money

• It is important to remember that those that make one healthy life choices that is being monitored (e.g. don't smoke) may be more likely to live generally healthier lives (e.g. regularly exercise) which also may have an effect on their risk of disease compared to others that chose other lifestyles

There are several things that should be taken into consideration when analysing data from studies on health risk factors

Sample size: the number of people involved in the study is very important. A study with a large sample size will have more reliable results

Individuals in the sample: if the study only has women aged 20-40 this data is not able to suggest the effect on a male or an older woman, it is therefore important to state the who the data is referring to when evaluating it

Levels of exposure: make sure to pay attention to the different levels of exposure to the risk factor that has been included in the study. Eg. 10 cigarettes a day, 20 cigarettes a day, no cigarettes and for how long

Control group: identify if the control group matches the other groups closely enough. The people in the control group should be of a similar age and background to those in the other groups

Statistical significance: try to determine if the differences between groups are sufficiently large and whether any statistical tests have been carried out to test the significance of the results

The influence of other factors/variables: bear in mind that there are many variables that have not been controlled due to moral reason. This means there may be a combination of factors that are interacting with each other to influence the results:

• Genetics

• Secondary exposure to smoking

• Other factors that have not been controlled that has an effect on lung health (e.g. exercise)

If the incidence or mortality rate of the disease for different groups has been provided, it can be helpful to calculate the relative risk of each group for comparison

For example, the percentage chance of a person developing the disease could be calculated for each group and then compared