Module 2

Question 1

What are the 3 goods and 5 bads of fish?

Answer 1

Goods:

1. main protein source
2. contain nutrients
3. recreation, culture, economic, spiritual

Bads:

1. sustainability concerns
2. contains toxic chemicals
3. ecosystem services
4. 1/8 of women have unsafe levels of mercury
5. mercury affects neuro development

Question 2

What is weighted evidence?

Answer 2

when there are many different studies supporting the same conclusion

Question 3

Why is mercury toxic?

Answer 3

mercury can bind to cysteine, which makes methyl-mercury.
Methyl-mercury is very similar to methionine.
The brain needs methionine to survive, but it cannot differentiate between methionine and methyl-mercury
it is a neuro toxin

Question 4

Which 2 populations are the most affected by fish intoxication?

Answer 4

Indigenous and arctic populations

Question 5

Why do indigenous communities have low levels of mercury?

Answer 5

Because there are many signs saying the the water are contaminated so they do not eat fish as much.

Question 6

So, should we eat fish or not?

Answer 6

YES

Question 7

Name 2 ways that we could make people eat fish and change their behavior.

Answer 7

1. education

2. make recommendations

Question 8

What is a domain?

Answer 8

All the possible values a variable can have

Question 9

What are qualitative variables?

Answer 9

properties that vary in a type of attributes.

described by words and can’t order them

Question 10

What are quantitative variables?

Answer 10

properties that differ in an amount

have specific values and can be ranked

Question 11

What are discrete variables?

Answer 11

quantitative adjacent variable in which no intermediate values are possible (1, 2, 3, 4, no 1.5)

Question 12

What are continuous variables?

Answer 12

intermediate values are possible in between two adjacent scale values

Question 13

What is mediator variable?

Answer 13

a 3rd variable to explain why the 2 are linked (ex: a mechanism explaining the effect of a medication)

Question 14

What is moderating variable?

Answer 14

a variable that alters the strength of the relationship between X and Y

Question 15

What is a confounding variable?

Answer 15

a variable that correlates with both X and Y but has no cause-effect
directly related to the outcome, but also correlated to the exposure

Question 16

What is accuracy (validity)?

Answer 16

the degree to which the measurements yields results that agree with the truth

Question 17

What is reliability (precision)?

Answer 17

the degree to which the measurement yields a consistent value

Question 18

What is parameter and statistic?

Answer 18

parameter is the characteristic of a population

statistic is the characteristic of a sample

Question 19

What is convenience vs random sample?

Answer 19

random sample is like having a list of everyone and randomly selecting people. convenience is putting ads up, choose one street and ring door to door, not random but convenient

Question 20

Why CHMS biomonitor?

Answer 20

to help us establish reference ranges

Question 21

What are case reports?

Answer 21

an in-depth analysis of a single individual, unit or event

direct observation/questioning

Question 22

What is a cohort study?

Answer 22

longitudinal/prospective
starts with an exposure and follow the group over time to see for any effects
compare between exposed group and unexposed group

Question 23

What is a case-control study?

Answer 23

retrospective

starts with an outcome/disease and work backwards to identify possible causes

Question 24

What is a cross-sectional study?

Answer 24

study at one point in time to determine if there is an association between exposure and health

Question 25

What are RCT normally used for?

Answer 25

to test new drugs and treatments

Question 26

What are the 3 main types of bias and their subtypes?

Answer 26

1. research planning
   - design bias
   - selection bias
2. data collection/intervention
   - measure bias
   - interview bias
   - recall bias
   - compliance bias
   - attrition bias
3. data analysis and publication
   - confounding bias
   - publication bias

Question 27

What could be an effect of participants volunteering to participate in a study?

Answer 27

• self-selection
• convenient sample
• non-response

Question 28

What is internal and external validity?

Answer 28

INTERNAL:
reliability or accuracy of the study results
confidence that bias is minimized or eliminated
reflects a researcher’s confidence that bias is minimized or eliminated as much as possible so that the results are representative of the outcomes

EXTERNAL:
Degree to which findings are able to be generalized to other groups or populations
Need to consider differences between source population and study population