Introduction to Biostatistics • compensate for poor design
Why you should care? • indicate biological significance:
statistical significance does not mean
• Without knowledge of statistics, you are biological significance, nor vice versa!
lost.
• It’s a part of medical studies now and in
your future practice. Statistics definition
Why need to learn biostatistics? Regarded in 2 ways:
Essential for scientific method of as a method; which is the
investigation collection, organization,
analysis, interpretation, and
–Formulate hypothesis presentation of information
that can be stated numerically.
–Design study to objectively test hypothesis
as data that refers to
–Collect reliable and unbiased data
quantitative (specific number)
–Process and evaluate data rigorously data affected to a marked
extent by a multiplicity of
–Interpret and draw appropriate conclusions causes
Essential for understanding, appraisal Biostatistics
and critique of scientific literature
is simply statistics as applied to
You can: the biological sciences, health,
and medicine.
• provide objective criteria for evaluating
hypotheses it is concerned with collection,
organization, summarization
• Help synthesize information (not
and analysis of data.
without information loss… keep your
raw data!) We seek to draw inferences
about a body of data when only
• help detect patterns in messy data
a part of the data is observed.
• help optimize effort
Why Biostatistics? What’s the difference?
• help you critically evaluate arguments
• Because some statistical methods are
You can’t: more heavily used in health applications
than elsewhere e.g. survival analysis,
• tell the truth (probabilistic conclusions longitudinal data analysis
only!)
• Illustrates how to apply methodology to communication of information about
similar problems encountered in real the data.
life
Other Data Classification
Uses of Statistics (according to subjects)
• Almost all fields of study benefit from a) Demographic - i.e., population size, age,
the application of statistical methods sex, geographical distribution, births,
mortality, etc.
• To collect and use empirical data
efficiently to gain the most value with b) Health Status – i.e. causes and
the least cost distribution of morbidity and mortality,
as to residence, place of occurrence,
• To use empirical data to describe the age, sex, etc.
world around us.
c) Health Resources – i.e. number and
• Interpretation of data distribution of health facilities, health
• To use empirical data to understand the manpower, health expenditures, service
world around us statistics, etc.
• To characterize replicable processes d) Health-related socio-economic
environmental factors - i.e. water
• To distinguish random noise from supply, excreta disposal, school
pattern enrolment, food establishments,
income groups, transport, food
intake/habits, etc.
Statistics
Specific number - numerical measurement
Sources of data
determined by a set of data (sample)
Data are obtained from:
Example: Twenty-three percent (23%) of people
interviewed said that they are aware of Analysis of records
Dengvaxia vaccination program. Surveys
Counting
Experiments
Reports
Data Classification
• Data are numbers which can be
measurements or can be obtained by Deductive and Inductive reasoning
counting.
• Biostatistics is concerned with the
interpretation of the data and the
Deductive reasoning: general principles are
applied to the specific situation at hand in order
to reach the best decision possible for a
particular patient. This type of reasoning – from
the general to the specific –
Inductive reasoning: We study a few patients
(or experimental animals), and from what we
observe. we try to make rational inferences
about what happens in general. This type of
reasoning – from the specific subject(s) at hand
to the general
Probability
The coverage of probability should be
closely tied to the subsequent coverage
of statistics.
The key is to present the basic rules of
probability by using probability to
describe populations and random
sampling from populations.
Use of realistic statistical examples.
