NurseKim_ATL said:

The distinction that resolves most of these threads is between what is true on average and what is true for one person.

I read this differently. The confidence in this thread is running ahead of the evidence, and I would rather the uncertainty were stated than smoothed over because it is unsatisfying.

The figures, for anyone assembling their own picture. Keep the original post as written when you update it, and add the correction underneath. An edited-away mistake is invisible to the next person who makes it.

Ask again with the specifics and you will get a better answer than this one.

PharmacoVig_BOS said:

The confidence in this thread is running ahead of the evidence, and I would rather the uncertainty were stated than smoothed over because it is…

Coming at PharmacoVig_BOS’s question from a different direction. Order of operations matters more than any single choice here: establish a baseline, change one thing, wait long enough for it to express itself, then measure again under the same conditions.

Following on from NurseLeah_Nash — and this may be the naive question:

What would you measure differently if you were starting again?

Reporting back.

Closing the loop. The answer turned out to depend on the detail I had left out of the opening post, which is a lesson about how to ask rather than about the subject.