Biostatistics For Dummies book cover

Biostatistics For Dummies

Overview

Score your highest in biostatistics

Biostatistics is a required course for students of medicine, epidemiology, forestry, agriculture, bioinformatics, and public health. In years past this course has been mainly a graduate-level requirement; however its application is growing and course offerings at the undergraduate level are exploding. Biostatistics For Dummies is an excellent resource for those taking a course, as well as for those in need of a handy reference to this complex material.

Biostatisticians—analysts of biological data—are charged with finding answers to some of the world's most pressing health questions: how safe or effective are drugs hitting the market today? What causes autism? What are the risk factors for cardiovascular disease? Are those risk factors different for men and women or different ethnic groups? Biostatistics For Dummies examines these and other questions associated with the study of biostatistics.

  • Provides plain-English explanations of techniques and clinical examples to help
  • Serves as an excellent course supplement for those struggling with the complexities of the biostatistics
  • Tracks to a typical, introductory biostatistics course

Biostatistics For Dummies is an excellent resource for anyone looking to succeed in this difficult course.

Score your highest in biostatistics

Biostatistics is a required course for students of medicine, epidemiology, forestry, agriculture, bioinformatics, and public health. In years past this course has been mainly a graduate-level requirement; however its application is growing and course offerings at the undergraduate level are exploding. Biostatistics For Dummies is an excellent resource for those taking a course, as well as for those in need of a handy reference to this complex material.

Biostatisticians—analysts of biological data—are charged with finding answers to some of the world's most pressing health questions: how safe or effective are drugs hitting

the market today? What causes autism? What are the risk factors for cardiovascular disease? Are those risk factors different for men and women or different ethnic groups? Biostatistics For Dummies examines these and other questions associated with the study of biostatistics.

  • Provides plain-English explanations of techniques and clinical examples to help
  • Serves as an excellent course supplement for those struggling with the complexities of the biostatistics
  • Tracks to a typical, introductory biostatistics course

Biostatistics For Dummies is an excellent resource for anyone looking to succeed in this difficult course.

Biostatistics For Dummies Cheat Sheet

To estimate sample size in biostatistics, you must state the effect size of importance, or the effect size worth knowing about. If the true effect size is less than the “important” size, you don’t care if the test comes out nonsignificant. With a few shortcuts, you can pick an important effect size and find out how many subjects you need, based on that effect size, for several common statistical tests. All the graphs, tables, and rules of thumb here are for 80 percent power and 0.05 alpha (that is, the sample size you need in order to have an 80 percent chance of getting a p value that’s less than or equal to 0.05). If you want sample sizes for other values of power and alpha, use these simple scale-up rules:

  • For 90 percent power instead of 80 percent: Increase N by a third (multiply N by 1.33).

  • For α = 0.01 instead of 0.05: Increase N by a half (multiply N by 1.5).

  • For 90 percent power and α = 0.01: Double N (multiply N by 2).