A medical researcher is interested in the possible role of a particular vaccine in causing autism. She identifies 50 autistic children and matches them with 50 similar age children from the same neighborhoods who were not autistic. She then determines which of the children had been given the vaccine. These are the results:
Group
Vaccine Autistic Normal Total
Yes 21 15 86
No 29 35 64
Total 50 50 100
a. What type of study design was used in this research?
b. Calculate and interpret the relative risk and odds ratio of autism for vaccine recipients v. non-recipients.
c. Which of the two comparative measures is more meaningful in this instance and why?