Biostatistics for Medical Researchers – Introduction and Descriptive Statistics

These flashcards cover key terminology and concepts related to the lecture notes on biostatistics, focusing on definitions and explanations that will assist in understanding the subject matter for exams.

Biostatistics

The application of statistical principles to medical research, involving the collection, processing, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of health-related data.

Primary data

Data collected directly from patients or subjects through methods such as interviews, medical examinations, and laboratory tests.

Secondary data

Data collected from existing records or databases, typically previously documented by someone other than the researcher.

Nominal data

Categorical data with no natural order, examples include gender, marital status, and race.

Ordinal data

Categorical data with a natural order where values can be ranked, such as pain severity or stages of disease.

Interval data

Continuous data with equal intervals between values, but no true zero, such as temperature in degrees Fahrenheit.

Ratio data

Continuous data that has a true zero, allowing for the expression of one value as a ratio of another, such as weight and height.

Measures of central tendency

Statistics that summarize the center point of a dataset, typically the mean, median, and mode.

Standard deviation (SD)

A measure of dispersion that indicates how much individual data points differ from the mean of the dataset.

Confidence intervals

A range of values that estimate the true population parameter, calculated from sample data with a specified level of confidence.

Normal distribution

A statistical distribution where data is symmetrically distributed around the mean, typically illustrated by a bell-shaped curve.

Skewed distribution

A distribution that is not symmetric around the mean, which can be negatively skewed (tail on the left) or positively skewed (tail on the right).