Foundations

Randomized, controlled clinical trials are studies in which a new intervention, such as a medical device, is randomly assigned to some participants and tested against a control group, which receives a standard treatment or a placebo to determine its effects. They often are considered the gold standard of medical studies because they can provide evidence of causation.

In January, Journalist’s Resource attended a four-day fellowship on cardiovascular health, “Covering the Heart Beat,” organized by the National Press Foundation. Researchers, physicians and journalists gathered with the goal of improving news coverage of cardiovascular health.

When journalists cover academic research, they often face the challenge of explaining complex scientific findings in a way the public trusts and understands.

Fittingly enough, there are researchers dedicated to the study of just that, producing knowledge that may help journalists better communicate other research findings.

A recent study challenges the role that legalizing medical marijuana might play in easing the opioid epidemic.

The paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in June 2019, indicates that a previously reported relationship between medical marijuana laws and declining opioid overdose deaths has not held up over time.

More than 1 in 4 people living in the United States has a mental or physical disability, according to a 2018 report from the Census Bureau, which collected the data in 2014.

If you’re a journalist, you might feel more comfortable with words than numbers. If you’re reading this, you might also be interested in research, which, more often than not, involves math — usually statistics. One of the more important statistical concepts used in interpreting research is effect size,  a measure of the strength of an association between two variables — say, an intervention to encourage exercise and the study outcome of blood pressure reduction.

Each year, around 88,000 people in the United States die from alcohol-related causes, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is higher than the number of deaths caused by overdoses from all other drugs, combined.