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1 Introduct

Statistics is concerned with collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data from groups of individuals or measurements. It involves study design, descriptive statistics, and inferential statistics. Examples provided analyze health center attendance data, infant mortality rates, prevalence of scabies between districts, relationships between microfilarial counts and nutrition in individuals with onchocerciasis, risk factors for hepatoma using a case-control study, and sample size calculations for a measles vaccine trial.

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Abdu Dahlan
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61 views9 pages

1 Introduct

Statistics is concerned with collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data from groups of individuals or measurements. It involves study design, descriptive statistics, and inferential statistics. Examples provided analyze health center attendance data, infant mortality rates, prevalence of scabies between districts, relationships between microfilarial counts and nutrition in individuals with onchocerciasis, risk factors for hepatoma using a case-control study, and sample size calculations for a measles vaccine trial.

Uploaded by

Abdu Dahlan
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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27/04/2012

What is Statistics?

Statistics is concerned with the collection,


analysis and interpretation of data collected from groups of individuals. Individuals: people, households, clinic visits, regions, blood slides, mosquitoes, etc., Data lab. measurements (serological titres, bacteria counts) (age, sex, area of residence, WT,HT)

Areas of statistics

Study Design Descriptive inferential or inductive

27/04/2012

Examples of the use of statistical methods.


Attendance at a health centre during a 3 month period are tabulated by cause of attendances, age and sex, to obtain a picture of the main reasons people use the health centre.
Total Female Sex Male age group <5 >5-10 >10-20 >20-30 >30 <5 >5-10 >10-20 >20-30 >30 <5 >5-10 >10-20 >20-30 >30 Cause of death Athma

Diabetes

Cardiovascular

The infant mortality rate of a country is plotted against calendar year for the decade 2000-2008, to see to what extent it is falling.

Deaths/1,000 live births

27/04/2012

A survey of the prevalence of scabies is conducted among school children in two districts. The prevalence is 40% in one district and 20% in the other, but these estimates are based on small numbers of children. The question arises as to whether these data provide good evidence of a difference in prevalence between the two districts, or whether the samples are too small to be conclusive.

Scabies % positive 40% 20% Number eaxamined 40 A 30 B

District

Data are available on microfilarial counts and nutritional status in adults with onchocerciasis living in a defined area. The data are examined to see whether there is any relationship between microfilarial counts and nutritional status, and in particular whether high microfilarial counts are associated with low weight-for-height.

27/04/2012

A case-control study of hepatoma is carried out to determine whether carriage of hepatitis B is more common among hepatoma cases than among matched controls. The objective is to assess whether carriage of hepatitis B is a risk factor for hepatoma.

Hepatoma No 20 30 Yes 40 Yes Hepatitis B 30 No OR=2

Sample size calculation A trial of measles vaccine given by nasal spray is to be conducted in children aged 6 months attending a group or health centre. Statistical techniques are to be used to estimate how many children need to be included in the trial to provide an accurate estimate of the seroconversion rate.

27/04/2012

Definitions of terms commonly used in statistics


Population refers to a theoretical or complete set of individuals, Sample - a subset of a population. Random sample - a subset of a population selected in such a Parameter
way that each member of the population has an equal opportunity to be selected. any characteristic of a population which is measurable. One refers to population parameters. objects or measurements having some common characteristic.

Statistic a number resulting from manipulation of sample data,


e.g, the average or mean value. We use a statistic that is calculated from a sample in order to estimate the population parameter

Types of variables
Variable is any type of observation made on an individual

A qualitative variable is one which takes values that are not


numerical, and can be (1) Nominal which have no natural ordering e.g. sex = male, female. (2) Ordinal which have a natural ordering e.g. physical activity 'inactive, 'fairly active, 'very active'. (3) Ranked which have some order or relative position e.g Birth order 1,2,...10.

27/04/2012

Types of variables cont.


A quantitative variable is one for which the resulting
observations can be measured because they possess natural order or ranking. Discrete It is a quantitative variable which can only take a number of distinct and separated numerical values. e.g. egg counts can take the values 0,1,2,3,........., but not 2.7. Continuous (quantitative) variable is one which can take an uninterrupted set of values, e.g. height could be 87.235 cms, 71.498 cms etc.

Scale of Measurement
Nominal scales
A nominal scale is used when the observation refer to unordered or a classification variables. It simply indicates the group to which each subject belongs.

Ordinal scales
An ordinal scale is one in which the classes do represent an ordered series or relationships. The relationships are expressed in terms of the algebra of inequalities for example a is less than b (a<b) or a is greater than b (a>b).

27/04/2012

Scale of Measurement cont.

Interval scales Ratio scales


zero point is arbitrary, so a value of zero on the scale do not represents zero quantity of the construct being assessed. E.g. the Fahrenheit scale used to measure temperature. have a true zero point. The zero does represent the complete absence of the attribute of interest, Zero length means no length.

Dependent/independent variables

A response variable is an outcome variable whose The explanatory variable predicts or explains other
variables. In an experiment, the explanatory variable is the variable that is manipulated. It is usually a discrete variable. The outcome of the manipulation is determined by measuring the dependent variable. score may be predicted by or related to the independent variable(s). In an experiment, the independent variable is generally discrete and is manipulated while the dependent variable can be discrete or continuous and is measured.

27/04/2012

Variable Quantitative

Qualitative(Categorical)

Ranked Ordinal Nominal Discrete Continuous


Birth order physical activity Sex blood group Area of residence Type of admission Survival (yes, no) Infected (yes, no) Egg count Bacterial count Episodes of diarrhoe No. of rooms in a house Weight Skinfold thickness Breast milk intake Hb concentration

Rounding

8.545001 becomes 8.55 8.545000 becomes 8.54 3.966200 becomes 3.97

27/04/2012

Class exercise 1
For the following decide type of the variable. Give a range of likely values or a list of categories. Name the individual in each case (the individual may or may not be human) as in the following example. The number of hours of operation of a number of 100 W light-bulbs. individual light bulb type of variable quantitative discrete range of values 0, 1, 2,3,4, 5....100 1. The colour of peoples hair 2. The type of occupation of adult males. 3. The annual rainfall in a country by region. 4.The reaction time of patients to stimulus 5. The position of an individual in the family 6. The grades obtained by candidates taking A-level mathematics. 7. The blood pressure of males 40 and above 8. The number of bacteria in a petri dish. 9. The physical activity of men with high blood pressure. 10. sex of people 11. nationality of employee working in a hospital 12. the presence or absence of a disease in a group of individuals 13. Weight for age (measure of underweight)

In the following examples determine the outcome, explanatory variable, and their types. Give a range of likely values or a list of categories. 1. A double blind trial was conducted to compare the effect of a new treatment with the existing drug (methyldopa) in patients with mild to moderate hypertension. Specifically the study aimed at investigating whether there is any difference in the effects of these drugs on systolic blood pressure. 2. In a survey, the diets of 175 pregnant women were classed as either very poor, poor, fair, good or excellent, according to their nutrient and energy content. The incidence of preeclamtic toxaemia (classified as rise in blood pressure with whether albuminuria or oedema, and excessive weight gain) was also recorded. The aim of the study was to see whether the occurrence of toxaemia is related to the diet in pregnancy.

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