Business Case Studies & Business Publications

Night-Lights and Nearsightedness (A)

Pfeifer, Phillip E...

Case

Night-Lights and Nearsightedness (A)

Pfeifer, Phillip E.; Zadnik, Karla

QA-0842 | Published September 21, 2015 | 1 pages Case

Collection: Darden School of Business

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Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania were interested in whether exposure to light early in life might affect eye growth and lead to an increased risk of myopia (nearsightedness). Eyes grew rapidly after birth, but myopia usually did not develop until later in life and arose from excessive postnatal eye growth. They knew that the duration of daily light had been shown to increase eye growth in chicks and wondered whether the same might be true for humans. The results startled researchers and might explain the increase in myopia rates over the last two centuries. The B case gives the results of a follow-on study conducted by the Ohio State University.

-To learn how to test the association between (independence of) two categorically scaled variables. -To learn how to test the association between two categorically scaled variables while holding a third constant. -To illustrate the difference between association and causation.