Question: Suppose two hospitals are willing to participate in an experiment to test a new treatment, and both hospitals agree to include 1100 patients in the study. Because the researchers who are conducting the experiment are on the staff of hospital A, they decide to perform the majority of cases with the new procedure. They randomly assign 1000 patients to the new treatment, with the remaining 100 receiving the standard treatment. Hospital B, which is a bit reluctant to try something new on too many patients, agrees to randomly assign 100 patients to the new treatment, leaving 1000 to receive the standard treatment. The following table displays the results:
a. Which treatment was more successful in hospital A? Justify your answer with relevant percents.
b. Which treatment was more successful in hospital B? Justify your answer with relevant percents.
c. Combine the data from the two hospitals into a single contingency table that shows the relationship between treatment and outcome. Which treatment has the higher survival rate in this combined table? Justify your answer.
d. Explain how this exercise is an example of Simpson's paradox.