Introduction to

Module

Basic Biostatistic

OBAID ULLAH FAHIM

MD, MPH, PHD

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 Time
6:00 – 8:00 Saturday, Monday,
Wednesday

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 Course Overview:
This course aims to provide the student
with basic skills in biostatistics and
common applications of biostatistics in
public health and nutrition research

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 Course Objectives:
• Explain, calculate, and interpret
descriptive statistics including scales of
measurement, frequency distributions,
measures of central tendency, measures
of dispersion, standard scores, and the
normal curve.
• Read, construct, and analyze charts,
graphs, and contingency tables.
•
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 Course Objectives:
• Understand the basic concepts of
inferential statistics including
probability, confidence intervals, and
hypothesis testing.
• Know when and how to apply common
parametric and none parametric
statistical tests

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 Course contents:
I will share it with you in separate file

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 Method of Teaching:
Lecture and Discussion group

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 Evaluation Methods:
 Homework 10%
 Quizzes 10%
 Final Exam 80%

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 Introduction to
Biostatistics

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 Objectives

At the end of this lecture

student will be able to explain:
Statistic, Biostatistics, data and
Variable

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 Why

Do I Need Biostatistics in My Life?

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 Statistics!
“I keep saying that the sexy job in the
next 10 years will be statisticians,” said
Hal Varian, chief economist at Google.
“And I’m not kidding.”

Hal Varian , Google Chief Economist,

August 2009

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 Statistics!
Headline from Harvard Business Review:
Data Scientist: The Sexiest Job of
the 21st Century1

1 Davenport T, Patil D. Harvard Business Review (October 2012)

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 Statistics!
Headline from New York Times:
For Today’s Graduate, Just One Word:
Statistics2

2 Lohr S. New York Times (August 2009)

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 Introduction Some Basic concepts
Statistics
 Recorded data

Number of OPD visits and deaths in a

hospital
 Characteristics calculated for a set
of data
Mean, standard deviation and
correlation coefficient
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 Introduction Some Basic concepts
Statistics is a field of study concerned
with
1- collection, organization, summarization
and analysis of data.
2- drawing of inferences about a body of
data when only a part of the data is
observed.
Statisticians try to interpret and
communicate the results to others.
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 Type of Statistics:
 Descriptive statistics:
Enumeration, organization and graphical
presentation of data, such as in census
 Inferential statistics:

Use information obtained from sample to

say something about an entire population,
like in sample survey

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 Biostatistics:
The tools of statistics are employed in many
fields:
business, education, psychology, agriculture,
economics, … etc.
When the data analyzed are derived from
the biological science and medicine,
we use the term biostatistics to distinguish
this particular application of statistical
tools and concepts.
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 Data:
 The raw material of Statistics is data.
 We may define data as figures. Figures
result from the process of counting or
from taking a measurement.
 For example:
 - When a hospital administrator counts
the number of patients (counting).
 - When a nurse weighs a patient
(measurement)
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 Sources of Data:
We search for suitable data to serve as the
raw material for our investigation.
Such data are available from one or more of
the following sources:
1- Routinely kept records.
For example:
- Hospital medical records contain immense
amounts of information on patients.
- Hospital accounting records contain a
wealth of data on the facility’s business
activities.
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 Sources of Data:
2- External sources.
The data needed to answer a question
may already exist in the form of
published reports, commercially
available data banks, or the research
literature, i.e. someone else has
already asked the same question.

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 Sources of Data:
3- Surveys:
The source may be a survey, if the
data needed is about answering
certain questions.

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 Sources of Data:
For example:
If the administrator of a clinic wishes
to obtain information regarding the
mode of transportation used by
patients to visit the clinic, then a
survey may be conducted among
patients to obtain this information

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 Sources of Data:
4- Experiments.
Frequently the data needed to answer
a question are available only as the
result of an experiment.

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 Sources of Data:
For example:
If a nurse wishes to know which of
several strategies is best for
maximizing patient compliance, she
might conduct an experiment in which
the different strategies of motivating
compliance are tried with different
patients.
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 Variable:
It is a characteristic that takes on
different values in different persons,
places, or things.
For example:
- heart rate,
- the heights of adult males,
- the weights of preschool children,
- the ages of patients seen in a dental
clinic.
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 Type of variable:
Quantitative Variables
It can be measured in the usual sense.
For example:
- the heights of adult males,
- the weights of preschool children,
- the ages of patients seen in a dental
clinic.

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 Type of variable:
Qualitative Variables
Many characteristics are not capable of
being measured. Some of them can be
ordered or ranked.
For example:
- classification of people into socio-economic
groups,
- social classes based on income, education,
etc.
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 Type of quantitative variable:
A discrete variable
is occur when the variable can only take
certain whole numerical values
For example:
- The number of daily admissions to a
general hospital,
- The number of decayed, missing or filled
teeth per child in an elementary school.
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 Type of quantitative variable:
A continuous variable
can take any value within a specified relevant
interval of values assumed by the variable.
For example:
- Height, weight, skull circumference.
No matter how close together the observed
heights of two people, we can find another
person whose height falls somewhere in
between.
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 Type of qualitative variable:
A nominal variable(There is no order to
the categories.)
used as identifiers ;do not represent a
quantity like telephone number, zip code, ID
and so on.
For example:
 Ethnicity
 1: African American
 2: Caucasian
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 3: Hispanic
 Type of qualitative variable:
An ordinal variable
represent an ordered series of relationships
like : first, second and third position;
For example:
1- mild,
2- moderate,
3- Sever ( pain)

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 Type of qualitative variable:
A dichotomous variable (binary)
variables have only 2 categories
For example:
Yes/No
Cure : Yes/No
Polio : Yes / no
Gender: Male/ Female

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 Variable types
 Outcome /dependent variable
 Explanatory variables or( independent
variable, risk factor, exposure and
predictor)
 Examples
Smoking  lung cancer
Age Hypertension

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 Variable types
• Independent variables are those that are
manipulated and/or may affect the
outcome of interest.
• These typically include age, gender, and
ethnicity.
• Dependent variables are the outcomes of
interest.
– These typically include health status, use
of health services, and cost of care.
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• Independent variables are those that are
manipulated and/or may affect the outcome
of interest.
• These typically include age, gender, and
ethnicity.
• Dependent variables are the outcomes of
interest.
– These typically include health status, use of
health services, and cost of care.

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 Quantitative Continuous
Qualitative Nominal

Quantitative Continuous

Qualitative Dichotomous
Qualitative Nominal

Quantitative
discrete
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Measurement Scales
 Nominal
 Numbers are simply used as a code

to represent characteristics.
 There is no order to the categories.

 The assignment of numbers to

categories is arbitrary.

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 Ordinal
 Numbers represent categories that can

be placed in a meaningful numerical

order (e.g., from lowest to highest).
 There is no information regarding the

size of the interval between the

different values.
 The size of the interval may be

different between the different

categories.
 There is no “true” zero.
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 Interval
 Numbers can be placed in meaningful
order.
 The intervals between the numbers are
equal.
 It is possible to add and subtract across
an interval scale.
 There is no true zero, so ratios cannot
be calculated.
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 Ratio
 Numbers can be placed in meaningful

order.
 The intervals between the numbers are

equal.
 There is a “true” zero, determined by

nature, which represents the absence of

the phenomena.
 Almost all biomedical measures (weight,

pulse rate, and cholesterol level) are of

ratio scale.
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Thanks for ……..

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