Overview

Within public health, there is a need for researchers, practitioners and policy makers to understand and interpret statistical findings from research. This topic is intended to meet the needs of those researchers wishing to gain knowledge of quantitative methods used in Public Health research. It is also designed to assist … For more content click the Read More button below.

Topic availabilities

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Tuition pattern

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Aims

The aim of the topic is to give students an introduction to the discipline, an appreciation of a biostatistical perspective on information arising from the health arena and basic critical appraisal skills to assess the quality of research evidence. The topic introduces basic statistical concepts of data presentation, probability distributions, p values and confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, correlation and regression. Public health examples are used for demonstration. Students will practice preparing and interpreting data for published research.

Learning outcomes

On completion of this topic you will be expected to be able to:
1.
Outline the importance of Biostatistics in Public Health
2.
Identify data into appropriate measurement types and apply for visualization and summarization
3.
Understand and explain the concept of probability and sampling, formulate research hypotheses into a statistical context and apply appropriate hypothesis tests in public health studies
4.
Describe how correlation and regression are used to identify relationships between variables and to predict outcomes
5.
Discover and demonstrate R software for analysing health dataset
6.
Assess the statistical methods and evidence presented in published research studies

Assessments

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Current students should refer to FLO for detailed assessment information, including due dates. Assessment information is accurate at the time of publishing.

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