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FDA Drug Approval and Hypothesis Testing

The document discusses several statistical hypothesis tests related to means and proportions. It presents hypothetical scenarios and population parameters, then poses questions about analyzing sample data and determining if there is sufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis at various significance levels. The questions cover topics like one-sample and two-sample t-tests, evaluating assumptions, and the effect of sample size on statistical power.

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Waleed Khalid
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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
11 views2 pages

FDA Drug Approval and Hypothesis Testing

The document discusses several statistical hypothesis tests related to means and proportions. It presents hypothetical scenarios and population parameters, then poses questions about analyzing sample data and determining if there is sufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis at various significance levels. The questions cover topics like one-sample and two-sample t-tests, evaluating assumptions, and the effect of sample size on statistical power.

Uploaded by

Waleed Khalid
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Questions

9.15. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for approving new drugs.
Many consumer groups feel that the approval process is too easy and, therefore, too many
drugs are approved that are later found to be unsafe. On the other hand, a number of industry
lobbyists are pushing for a more lenient approval process so that pharmaceutical companies
can get new drugs approved more easily and quickly (R. Sharpe, FDA Tries to Find Right
Balance on Drug Approvals, The Wall Street Journal, April 20, 1999, p. A24). Consider a null
hypothesis that a new, unapproved drug is unsafe and an alternative hypothesis that a new,
unapproved drug is safe.
a. Explain the risks of committing a Type I or Type II error.
b. Which type of error are the consumer groups trying to avoid? Explain.
c. Which type of error are the industry lobbyists trying to avoid? Explain.
d. How would it be possible to lower the chances of both Type I and Type II errors?

9.33. ATMs must be stocked with enough cash to satisfy customers making withdrawals over an
entire weekend. But if too much cash is unnecessarily kept in the ATMs, the bank is forgoing the
opportunity of investing the money and earning interest. Suppose that at a particular branch, the
population mean amount of money withdrawn from ATMs per customer transaction over the
weekend is $160, with a population standard deviation of $30.

a. If a random sample of 36 customer transactions indicates that the sample mean


withdrawal amount is $172, is there evidence to believe that the population mean
withdrawal amount is no longer $160? (Use a 0.05 level of significance.)

9.47. The waiting time to place an order at a branch of a fast-food chain during the lunch hour
has had a population mean of 3.55 minutes, with a population standard deviation of 1.1 minutes.
Recently, in an effort to reduce the waiting time, the branch has experimented with a system in
which there is a single waiting line. A sample of 100 customers during a recent lunch hour was
selected, and their mean waiting time to place an order was 3.18 minutes. Assume that the
population standard deviation of the waiting time has not changed from 1.1 minutes.

a. At the 0.05 level of significance, using the critical value approach to hypothesis
testing, is there evidence that the population mean waiting time to place an order is less
than 3.55 minutes?

9.60. The following data represent the amount of soft-drink filled in a sample of 50 consecutive
2-liter bottles. The results, listed horizontally in the order of being filled, were:

2.109 2.086 2.066 2.075 2.065 2.057 2.052 2.044 2.036 2.038

2.031 2.029 2.025 2.029 2.023 2.020 2.015 2.014 2.013 2.014

2.012 2.012 2.012 2.010 2.005 2.003 1.999 1.996 1.997 1.992

1.994 1.986 1.984 1.981 1.973 1.975 1.971 1.969 1.966 1.967

1.963 1.957 1.951 1.951 1.947 1.941 1.941 1.938 1.908 1.894
a. At the 0.05 level of significance, is there evidence that the mean amount of soft drink filled is
different from 2.0 liters?
b. Determine the p-value in (a) and interpret its meaning.
c. Evaluate the population distribution assumption you made in (a) graphically. Are the results of
(a) valid?Why?
d. Examine the values of the 50 bottles in their sequential order, as given in the problem. Is
there a pattern to the results? If so, what impact might this pattern have on the validity of the
results in (a)?

9.73. One of the biggest issues facing e-retailers is the ability to reduce the proportion of
customers who cancel their transactions after they have selected their products. It has been
estimated that about half of prospective customers cancel their transactions after they have
selected their products (B. Tedeschi, E-Commerce, a Cure for Abandoned Shopping Carts: A
Web Checkout System That Eliminates the Need for Multiple Screens, The New York Times,
February 14, 2005, p. C3). Suppose that a company changed its Web site so that customers
could use a single-page checkout process rather than multiple pages. A sample of 500
customers who had selected their products were provided with the new checkout system. Of
these 500 customers, 210 cancelled their transactions after they have selected their products.

a. At the 0.01 level of significance, is there evidence that the proportion of customers who
selected products and then cancelled their transaction was less than 0.50 with the new system?
b. Suppose that a sample of 100 customers who had selected their products were provided
with the new checkout system and that 42 of those customers cancelled their transactions after
they had selected their products. At the 0.01 level of significance, is there evidence that the
proportion of customers who selected products and then cancelled their transaction was less
than 0.50 with the new system?
c. Compare the results of (a) and (b) and discuss the effect that sample size has on the
outcome, and, in general, in hypothesis testing.

Common questions

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Industry lobbyists aim to avoid Type II errors, where safe and effective drugs are not approved. They wish to streamline the approval process to ensure that beneficial drugs can reach the market quickly, thereby maximizing their commercial interests and improving public access to new treatments .

A Type I error in the context of drug approval occurs when a drug is incorrectly approved despite being unsafe, which could lead to public health risks and loss of trust in regulatory bodies. A Type II error, on the other hand, occurs when a drug that is indeed safe is not approved, potentially delaying beneficial treatments from reaching patients .

Consumer groups are primarily concerned with avoiding Type I errors, where an unsafe drug is approved. This is because their main interest is in ensuring that only safe and effective drugs reach the market, protecting public health from potential adverse effects of unsafe drugs .

To decrease the likelihood of both Type I and Type II errors, the FDA could enhance its approval process by adopting more comprehensive pre-approval testing methods, incorporating advanced data analytics, and utilizing adaptive regulatory frameworks. This approach can improve decision accuracy by allowing more nuanced evaluations of a drug's safety and efficacy .

The sample mean waiting time is 3.18 minutes with a known population standard deviation of 1.1 minutes. Using a z-test, the critical value approach shows that if the calculated z-score is less than the critical z-value for a one-sided test at a 0.05 significance level, we can conclude a significant reduction in mean waiting time. The results of this test will confirm the hypothesis of reduced waiting times .

The scenario involves 210 out of 500 customers canceling transactions, resulting in a sample proportion of 0.42. A hypothesis test (e.g., z-test for proportions) compares this to the null hypothesis proportion of 0.50. If the test statistic falls below the critical value for the 0.01 level of significance, there's statistically significant evidence that the single-page checkout process reduces cancellations below 50%, confirming improved transaction completion .

Observing a pattern in the fill levels of soft drink bottles could indicate systematic bias or operational issues affecting production, leading to serial correlation in error terms and potentially invalidating the assumptions of independence required for standard hypothesis testing. This could skew results, indicating problems that need addressing to ensure accurate and reliable findings .

Sample size has a significant impact on hypothesis testing; larger sample sizes generally provide more reliable estimates of the population parameters and narrower confidence intervals. In the context of e-commerce cancellations, a larger sample size (500 vs. 100) provides more power to detect a significant difference from the 0.50 cancellation rate, reducing the chances of Type II errors and increasing the likelihood of statistically significant findings .

Graphically evaluating the population distribution can verify assumptions such as normality, which is crucial for the validity of hypothesis tests like a t-test. Deviations from normality might suggest that the results of a hypothesis test could be distorted, leading to inaccurate conclusions. Testing for normal distribution through histograms or QQ-plots allows inspection of data's adherence to statistical assumptions, ensuring the reliability of test results .

Given that the sample mean is $172 and the population standard deviation is $30, with a sample size of 36, the test statistic is calculated to determine if the population mean has shifted from $160. At a 0.05 significance level, a statistical test such as a z-test should be used to evaluate if there's substantial evidence for a change. A calculated z-score higher than the critical value indicates a significant difference. Without the exact calculations here, if the test statistic confirms exceeding critical values, then there is evidence to suggest a change .

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