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A parent's guide to understanding medical studies

Educate yourself with our tips on how to read and interpret medical research

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Originally published in Today's Parent June 2011

Have you ever read a story about results of a medical study and wondered what it means for your family? These days, access to medical studies is as simple as a mouse-click away so parents can educate themselves on the most up-to-date research. This can be both a blessing and a curse. But with the slew of provocative health reports we are deluged with on a regular basis, making decisions based on fear, 

not facts, can be tempting. Before playing Dr. Mom (or Dad), here are a few tips on how to read, and critically interpret, a medical study.

Learn the lingo
There are three major types of studies: a double-blind, randomized controlled trial (RCT), a meta-analysis and an observational study. One isn't necessarily better than the other, they simply reach scientific conclusions in different ways. Here's how they work.
 
RCT
RCTs investigate whether or not a drug or intervention works by randomly, or blindly, assigning participants into two groups: those who receive the treatment and those who don't. These studies are particularly useful for eliminating bias and help parents understand the treatment outcome of a specific drug. For example, does the antibiotic amoxicillin help alleviate the symptoms of a sore throat in children?

Meta-analysis
A meta-analysis is a method of combining data from several RCTs into a larger, systematic review. By statistically pooling information from a number of independent studies, researchers, and parents, can be more confident the chance of spurious results (i.e. false positives or false negatives) are minimized. The Cochrane Collaboration is a great resource for moms and dads who want to access these large-scale studies to learn more about the potential risks and benefits of various medical treatments. For example, what does the vast majority of the research say about the effectiveness of various interventions for preventing obesity in children?

Observational studies
An observational study is one that follows a group of individuals exposed, unintentionally, to a variety of potentially harm-causing agents, including pollution or carcinogens, and attempts to make a correlation between exposure and disease. For example, do children who live in large cities have a greater risk of developing asthma? These studies provide parents with a wealth of scientific information, that, for ethical or practical reasons, could never be gathered using an RCT. But they also come with a very important caveat: just because two things are linked, one does not necessarily cause the other.

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