BIOSTATISTICS
Introductory Biostatistics A course in introductory biostatistics is often required for professional students in public health, dentistry, nursing, and medicine, and for graduate students in nursing and other biomedical sciences, a requirement that is often considered a roadblock, causing anxiety in many quarters. These feelings are expressed in many ways and in many di¤erent settings, but all lead to the same conclusion: that students need help, in the form of a user-friendly and real data-based text, in order to provide enough motivation to learn a subject that is perceived to be di‰cult and dry. This introductory text is written for professionals and beginning graduate students in human health disciplines who need help to pass and benefit from the basic biostatistics requirement of a one-term course or a full-year sequence of two courses. Our main objective is to avoid the perception that statistics is just a series of formulas that students need to ‘‘get over with,’’ but to present it as a way of thinking—thinking about ways to gather and analyze data so as to benefit from taking the required course. There is no better way to do that than to base a book on real data, so many real data sets in various fields are provided in the form of examples and exercises as aids to learning how to use statistical procedures, still the nuts and bolts of elementary applied statistics.
Preface
The first five chapters start slowly in a user-friendly style to nurture interest and motivate learning. Sections called ‘‘Brief Notes on the Fundamentals’’ are added here and there to gradually strengthen the background and the concepts. Then the pace is picked up in the remaining seven chapters to make sure that those who take a full-year sequence of two courses learn enough of the nuts and bolts of the subject. Our basic strategy is that most students would need only one course, which would end at about the middle of Chapter 8, after covering simple linear regression; instructors may add a few sections of Chapter 12. For students who take only one course, other chapters would serve as references to supplement class discussions as well as for their future needs. A subgroup of students with a stronger background in mathematics would go on to a second course, and with the help of the brief notes on the fundamentals would be able to handle the remaining chapters. A special feature of the book is the sections ‘‘Notes on Computations’’ at the end of most chapters. These notes cover uses of Microsoft’s Excel, but samples of SAS computer programs are also included at the end of many examples, especially the advanced topics in the last several chapters.
Preface The way of thinking called statistics has become important to all professionals: not only those in science or business but also caring people who want to help to make the world a better place. But what is biostatistics, and what can it do? There are popular definitions and perceptions of statistics. We see ‘‘vital statistics’’ in the newspaper: announcements of life events such as births, marriages, and deaths. Motorists are warned to drive carefully, to avoid ‘‘becoming a statistic.’’ Public use of the word is widely varied, most often indicating lists of numbers or data. We have also heard people use the word data to describe a verbal report, a believable anecdote. For this book, especially in the first few chapters, we don’t emphasize statistics as things, but instead, o¤er an active concept of ‘‘doing statistics.’’ The doing of statistics is a way of thinking about numbers (collection, analysis, and presentation), with emphasis on relating their interpretation and meaning to the manner in which they are collected. Formulas are only a part of that thinking, simple tools of the trade; they are needed but not as the only things one needs to know.
About the Author: Ed Neil O. Maratas an instructor of Jose Rizal Memorial State University, Dapitan Campus, Philippines as regular status. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Statistics at Mindanao State University-Tawi-Tawi College of Technology and Oceanography in the year 2003 and finished Master of Arts in Mathematics at Jose Rizal Memorial State University year 2009. He Became a researcher, a data analyst, and engaged to several projects linked to the university as data processor.
Prepared by:ednielmaratas@gmail.com or you can visit the facebook pageStatisticss For Fun for more details about statistics.
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