How effective is a new toothpaste in reducing cavities. Operational study or controlled experiment?

Question

Vocaloid · Answer

The main difference is that operational study involves observing a relationship that already exists (for example, surveying people and collecting data on their cavity history and then organizing it by the toothpaste they use)

An experiment would be creating a randomized sample of people to deliberately use a particular toothpaste and observe the result differences in cavity formation

Vocaloid · Answer

Now, back to the question: whether this is an experiment or observational study. There’s not much to go off here but if they are trying to establish a cause and effect relationship this is probably an experiment