25 Jul SUNY Risk of Acquiring Alzheimer and Other Forms of Dementia Summary

Health in the News 1

The goal of this assignment is to critically evaluate a health claim reported in mass media.

First, read this short post from the University of California San Francisco Medical Center on evaluating health information:

https://www.ucsfhealth.org/education/evaluating_health_information/

Next, read this New York Times article on cataract surgery and dementia:

Bakalar, N. (2022, Jan 25). Reduced dementia risk tied to cataract surgery: [science desk]. New York Times Retrieved from https://ezproxy.purchase.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fnewspapers%2Freduced-dementia-risk-tied-cataract-surgery%2Fdocview%2F2622404352%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D14171

Then, answer the following questions about the New York Times article.

1. What does the article claim?

2. Is the source of the information credible? Why or why not? (You should use the article on evaluating health information to inform your response to this question)

3. How was the study conducted? Was the study a clinical trial or was the study correlational? (Be sure to watch the voice thread lecture on telling the difference between a clinical trial and a correlational study!)

4. If the study was correlational, how could a researcher turn this into a clinical trial?

5. If one were to assume that the claims reported in the NYTimes article are accurate, is the finding important? Why or why not?

6. What do you conclude? Do you believe the claims reported in the article? What led you to your own personal conclusion?

You will submit your response directly to Moodle. Be thoughtful and thorough in your responses. If your response is shorter than the equivalent of about 2 double-spaced pages (or 500-600 words), you are likely not being sufficiently thorough.