Prerequisite:

Differentiable and integral calculus.

Objectives:  

The aim of this course is to provide students with basic principles of statistical inference applicable to clinical and epidemiologic so that they can: (i) understand how statistical methods are used by others, (ii) apply statistical methods in their own research, and (iii) use the methods learned in this course as a foundation for more advanced biostatistics courses.

Content:

A more detailed course outline is available here. In brief, the course will cover:

Topic	Moore & McCabe
Data collection, description, and display	Chapters 1, 3
Probability, Discrete and continuous distributions Randomness and random variables Bayes’ Theorem Diagnostic tests	Chapter 4, 5.1
Inference for means Sampling distributions Inference and estimating with confidence Hypothesis testing Paired and unpaired data Sample size and power	Chapters 5.2, 6, 7
Inference for proportions Paired and unpaired data c2 test Fisher’s exact test Inference for epidemiologic parameters (RR, OR) Sample size and power	Chapter 8
Nonparametric statistics Sign test Wilcoxon rank sum Wilcoxon signed rank test	Chapter 7, 15
Regression and correlation Pearson correlation, Spearman correlation Kendall’s tau Least squares regression Coefficient interpretation	Chapters 2, 10

Texts:

Required text:

Moore D and McCabe G. Introduction to the Practice of Statistics, Fifth Edition. 2006. Freeman and Company.

Recommended resources:

Armitage P, Berry G, and Matthews JNS. Statistical Methods in Medical Research, Fourth Edition. 2002. Blackwell Scientific Publications.

Colton T. Statistics in Medicine. 1974. Little Brown.

Equipment:

Hand calculators (with square root, log, and exponential function) are required.  The R software package will be introduced and used for in-class illustrations. R is available under GPL (free) at http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/R/CRAN.

Evaluation:

5-6 assignments                                                                                      15%

Mid-term exam                                                                                       30%

Project                                                                                                        15%

Final exam                                                                                                40%

The final grade will consist of a letter grade. This will be determined by taking the maximum of:

                   (Homework/Project 30% + Midterm Exam 30% + Final exam 40%)

and                                  (Homework/Project 30% + Final Exam 70%).

The midterm will be held in class Monday, October 22 in Purvis Hall, Room 25 (closed-book).

The project is due Monday, November 26 at 11:05.

The final will be held Friday, December 7 2-5pm, location TBA (closed-book).

No make-up work will be allowed for assignments unless a valid & demonstrable reason is presented

within 1 week of the original due date.

Comments:

October 8, 2007, is a holiday (Thanksgiving). Note that Tuesday, October 9 follows a Monday schedule and

class will be held at the usual time and place.