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Sara Lortie Applied Statistics Professor Leonard 12 June 2018 Preventing the Common Cold The news article I chose, talks about an experimental study regarding the relationship between sleep and the common cold. For many years, people have speculated that the amount of sleep they get or don’t get can have an impact on the chances of catching a cold. This study shows that there is an impact on how our sleep can impact our immune system. The article explains that there are two parts to the study to help pick out people who are bias, and not. The first part of the study started off by selecting 164 healthy people. Over the course on one week, they asked the individuals to record what time they went to bed and woke up, as well as using bracelets that monitor when they’re actually sleeping and the movement they have during the night. This is very important to the study because you are collecting observational data before the experimenting begins. Without the observational part of this, the experiment wouldn’t work out. In the second part of the experiment, the “scientists quarantined participants in a hotel and gave them nose drops containing rhinovirus,” (Armitage, ¶ 4). For 5 days, the scientists monitored the individuals on how they’re doing. Before the nose drops were dispersed to the participants, the scientists drew the individuals’ blood to make sure that they all had about the same immunity as everyone else so that there was no bias information. This took about 40 people out of the study which left 124 participants. As the days went on, people started to gain symptoms of the cold. In order to qualify as sick, the individuals “had to exhibit one ‘objective

sign of illness’ and one other immune response,” (Armitage, ¶ 5). Along with these, the scientists still performed multiple tests. One of these tests included dripping dye into the participants’ noses and waiting to see how long it would take to get to the back of their throats which showed the amount of congestion the subjects were experiencing. The ending of the experiment showed that “individuals who slept fewer than 5 hours a night were 4.5 times more likely to get sick than those who slept 7 hours or more. Those who slept 5 to 6 hours were 4.2 times more likely to get sick, but those who slept 6 to 7 hours per night were at no greater risk of catching the cold than those who slept 7 hours or more,” (Armitage, ¶ 6). In statistics you are required to collect data from a population. This experiments’ population was the world. Out of the world they conducted a census and formed a sample which is the 164 healthy people. From these 164 healthy people, they performed tests and took out the people who had more antibodies than the other participants, leaving 124. The information found at the end of the experiment has statistical significance because it proved the point that lack of sleep can really cause your immune system to be slower causing the immunity of your body to the common cold to decrease.

Works Cited Armitage, Hanae. “Lack of Sleep Puts You at Higher Risk for Colds, First Experimental Study Finds.” Science | AAAS, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1 Sept. 2015,...