Biostatistics For Dummies

Learn to:

• Understand key statistical concepts as they relate to biological sciences
• Interpret biological and statistical data in any setting
• Score your highest in your biostatistics course

Baffled by biostatistics?

Biostatisticians 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? Covering the most relevant topics you'll encounter in a biostatistics course, Biostatistics For Dummies gives you plain-English explanations of important concepts and plenty of examples.

• Back to the basics — get up to speed on math and statistics concepts, find advice on selecting statistical software, and get an overview of clinical research
• The deal with data — find out how to collect data properly, summarize it concisely, display it in tables and graphs, and describe its qualities
• Size it up — grasp the most common statistical techniques for comparing groups: t tests, ANOVAs, chi-square tests, and Fisher Exact tests
• Let's regress — learn how to test for and quantify the relationship between two or more variables, from a simple straight-line regression to multiple, logistic, nonlinear, and other kinds of regression
• Survive and thrive — see how to calculate survival curves, test for a difference in survival between two or more groups of subjects, and apply the methods of regression analysis to survival data

Open the book and find:

• Basic math and statistical formulas, concepts, and techniques you need to know
• The big picture of clinical research
• How to summarize and graph data
• The scoop on accuracy, precision, standard errors, and confidence intervals
• Ways to compare groups
• Common distribution functions
• Simple rules for sample-size calculations

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.