Introduction to Biostatistics

Dr. Abhaya Indrayan

Aim of Course:

This course covers the principal statistical concepts as applied to medical and health sciences. Basic methods required for statistical analysis of medical data are reviewed. Especially important concepts are discussed in detail. At the conclusion of this course, students will be able to calculate the sensitivity-specificity of medical tests, interpret ROC curves, calculate relative risk and odds ratios, use software to obtain confidence intervals, determine P-values and power, understand tests of equivalence, explain medical vs. statistical significance, conduct ANOVA analysis, and determine the need for Tukey and Bonferroni adjustment for multiple comparisons. The focus in this course is on medical and health applications rather than on method development.

Who Should Take This Course:

Anyone in the health sciences who needs a grounding in the basic statistical methods used in analyzing studies and trials. This includes researchers, managers, physicians, nurses and others who must interact with statisticians and statistical consultants, as well as graduate students who must meet a statistics requirement, or who need to use statistics in their own research projects.

For those enrolled in Professional Advancement Programs, this is a required or elective course in the following Programs:

• Biostatistics (epidemiology) - required
• Biostatistics (controlled trials) - required

Course Program:

The course is structured as follows

The Instructor:

Dr. Abhaya Indrayan is the author of Medical Biostatistics (2nd ed., CRC Press), and the author of a book on medical research methods. Dr. Indrayan is Professor and Chair of the Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics at the College of Medical Sciences, University of Delhi, and frequently provides biostatistical consultation to the World Health Organization, the World Bank and UNAIDS.

Organization of the Course:

The course takes place over the internet, at statistics.com. During each course week, you participate at times of your own choosing - there are no set times when you must be online. Course participants will be given access to a private discussion board. In class discussions led by the instructor, you can post questions, seek clarification, and interact with your fellow students and the instructor. The course is scheduled to take place over 4 weeks, and typically requires 10-15 hours per week. At the beginning of each week, you receive the relevant material, in addition to answers to exercises from the previous session. During the week, you are expected to go over the course materials and work through exercises. Discussion among participants is encouraged. The instructor will provide answers and comments.

Certificates and Grades:

You may be interested only in learning the material presented, and not be concerned with grades or certificates. Or you may be enrolled in a statistics.com Professional Advancement Program that requires demonstration of proficiency in the subject, in which case your work will be assessed for purposes of issuing a grade. You may be seeking academic credit for this course via the ACE credit recommendation service (see below). Or you may require only a "Certificate of Course Completion," along with professional development credit in the form of Continuing Education Units (CEU's). As you begin the class, you will be asked to specify your category.

Credit:

Academic credit (3.0 semester hours) for this course is available via the American Council on Education (ACE) Credit Recommendation Service. Click here for details. This course also offers continuing education units (CEU's). For those successfully completing the course (generally this means marks of 50% or better on the homework), 5.0 CEU's and a certificate will be issued by statistics.com, upon request.

Dates:

Jul. 11 - Aug. 8, 2008
Click here to be notified of future course offerings.

Participants gain access to the online materials on the first day of the course, and typically spend about 10-15 hours per week (at their convenience). You retain full access to course materials, including discussion board, for two weeks after the course closing date.

Level:

Intermediate

Prerequisite:

The equivalent of Introduction to Statistics I: Inference for a Single Variable, and Introduction to Statistics II: Working with Bivariate Data (and, if necessary before these courses, Introduction to Statistics for Beginners or Survey of Statistics for Beginners). Note also that sample size and power are touched upon briefly in this course; they are covered in detail in Sample Size and Power Determination. Likewise, randomization (exact) tests also are discussed in brief in this course; a more complete treatment can be found in Randomization Tests.

Course Text:

The required text is Medical Biostatistics, second ed., by Abhaya Indrayan. You may order it using this discount form or online by clicking here. CRC Press usually offers a 25% discount when the text is ordered using the above discount form.

Software:

Course participants should have access to a standard statistical software package for use in course exercises, including obtaining CI's, performing tests of significance including two-way ANOVA and multiple comparisons tests, and producing ROC curves. Stata, SAS and R have these capabilities and are supported by statistics.com teaching assistants. SPSS and Systat also have these capabilities. For more information about obtaining free or nominal cost versions of standard software packages, click here.

Registration:

Register Online - $449
Register Online (academic) - $349 (you must be affiliated with a college, university or high school)

Add $50 service fee if you require a prior invoice, or if you need to submit a purchase order or voucher, pay by wire transfer or EFT, or refund and reprocess a prior payment. Please use this printed registration form, for these and other special orders.

Note: Courses may fill up at any time and registrations are processed in the order in which they are received. Your registration will be confirmed for the first available course date, unless you specify otherwise.