INTRODUCTION TO

BIOSTATISTICS

By
MS. KHUSHBOO CHANDIO
LECTURER
PNS, LUMHS

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 OBJECTIVES
Define statistics
Explain types of statistics
Define biostatistics
Discuss data
Describe the types of data
Identification of variable types and variable
scales (nominal, ordinal, continuous).

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 STATISTICS
It is the a branch of applied mathematics which
deals with collection, organization,
summarizing, analyzing, presenting data and
drawing a valid conclusion followed by a
reasonable decision making.

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 WHAT IS BIOSTATISTICS?
 The application of statistical methods to the solution of biological problems.

OR

 Development and application of statistical techniques to scientific research

relating to life:
👉Human, Plant and Animal

👉Here the focus is on Human life and Health. Thus the areas of application relates
to:
 Pharmacology
 medicine
 epidemiology
 public health
 Physiology and anatomy,

4  Genetics
 ESSENCE OF BIO-STATISTICS?

AS the knife is to Surgery so is the

Biostatistics to M e d i c a l Research

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 TYPES OF STATISTICS
DESCRIPTIVE INFERENIAL
 Description of the facts  Making an assumption of
future happening
OR  Inferential statistics use
information obtained from
 It is to collect, organize, a sample to say something
summarize and present data about an entire population.
 Example:
 Example:
 Number of patients
attended OPD in  Prediction of the number of
 the month of November patients potentially attend
2020 OPD in December 2020
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 DATA
“Facts or figures from which conclusions can be
drawn".
OR

Data is any piece of information about a

characteristics that can be counted (pulse rate),
measured (Height, Weight, Temperature),
Judged (Tall, Medium, Short), Assessed (as
Malnourished), or Observed (As Yellow
coloration of skin or observation of person’s life
style).
(Khan IA, Biostatistics For All, 3rd edition)
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 Raw Data
Data initially collected (First
Hand Data), has a lot of
unnecessary, irrelevant and
unwanted information due to
lack of any sort of data
cleaning or statistical
treatment.
This data is called raw data or
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primary data.
 Treated Data
When raw data is cleaned by
removing unwanted, irrelevant,
unnecessary information and
some statistical shape is given
to it then it is called treated
data.
Treated data is meaningful
data ready to be used.
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 Cooked Data
The data that has not been
collected genuinely or is
twisted to get the desired
results is called cooked data.

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 Ungrouped Data
The Data that is presented or
observed individually is called
ungrouped data.
For example following is
ungrouped data of number of
children in 10 families.
2,6,4,4,6,4,3,7,4,5

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 Grouped Data
For better and quick
understanding, the identical
data, by frequency (Frequency
is counting of the
characteristics) is grouped
together.
For example above of children
Class Interval (Number of Frequency
of 10 families are grouped as
Children)
2 following:
-4 6
12 5-7 4
POPULATION
An entire collection of individuals or objects whose properties
are to be analyzed or from which we may collect data.

SAMPLE
A subset of the population, selected in such a way that it is
representative of the larger population

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 POPULATION &
SAMPLE
Reference

Population

Sample

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 WHY DO WE
SAMPLE

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 Variable
In observing various phenomena, we are
usually interested in obtaining information
on specific characteristics—for instance,
age, weight, height, marital status, or
smoking habits.
These characteristics are referred to as
variables; the values of the observations
recorded for them are referred to as data.
A variable is a characteristic or attribute
that can assume different values.

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 1. Quantitative or Numerical
Variables
This type of variable is based on numbers
as; 2, 6, 8, 10.5, 11.6.
In this series we notice two types, one in
whole number as 2,6, and 8 and second
type is in decimal as 10.5, 11.6.
It means numerical data is of two types and
these are following:
I. Discrete data
II. Continuous data

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 I. Discrete Variable (it is always
counted)
1. It is numerical data that is in whole
numbers or integer values and is not in
fraction/ decimals.
For example:

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5 Pencils 4 Pen 4 Children
 Discrete Variable Cont..
 Pulse rate of a patient is 76 per minute

 The number of children or pulse rate can’t

be 6.2 and 76.4 (in decimals) respectively.

 It can be with unit’s e.g pulse rate 76 per

minute.

 It can be without unit’s, for example

number of children in a family=6

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 II. Continuous Data (infinite number, it is
always measured)
1. Numerical data that can be measured on a
continuous scale is called continuous data. It can
be in fraction. For example height of a person is
5 feet, 6 inches or 5 1/6 feet

2. It can be in whole No. (integers) e.g. weight 60

kg.

 (please note that basically the weight is an

example of continuous data as it can be in fraction).
It is always with units as height in cm/feet,
temperature in °C or °F, Weight in kg/lbs etc.

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 2. Qualitative or Categorical
Variables
This is non numerical data e.g male/
female, tall/ short, married/ unmarried.

Qualitative data is of two types,

I. Nominal Data
II. Ordinal or Ranked Data

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 I. Nominal Data (Placing of data
without any order)
It has series of unordered categories which are
mutually exclusive (more than one can not occur
at the same time). One cannot tick more than
one at a time, e.g
Sex: Male/ Female
Marital Status: Married/Unmarried
Blood Group: O/A/B/AB

In majority of cases, unordered mutually exclusive

data is Dichotomous or Binary, where response is
one of two as serial (1), & (2) in above example.

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 II. Ordinal / Ranked Variable
 This is type of qualitative data that has distinct ordered/
ranked categories placed in a meaningful order. For example
1. Measurement of Height
Tall
Medium
Short

2. Degree of Pain
Mild
Moderate
Severe

3. Size of Garments
Small
24 Medium
Large
 Ht: , Wt: , Hb level No: of children No: Socio economic
of Deaths
Sex (Male Female)
status: Lower Marital status (single
class married, widowed,
separated, divorced)
Middle class
Upper class

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 INDEPENDENTAND
DEPENDENT VARIABLES

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 INDEPENDENT VARIABLE
DEFINITION
• An independent variable is defines as the variable
that is changed or controlled in a scientific
experiment. It represents the cause or reason for an
outcome.
• Independent variables are the variables that the
experimenter changes to test their dependent
variable. A change in the independent variable
directly causes a change in the dependent
variable. The effect on the dependent variable is
measured and recorded.
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 INDEPENDENT VA RIA BLE
EXAMPLES
• A scientist is testing the effect of light and dark on
the behavior of moths by turning a light on and
off. The independent variable is the amount of
light and the moth's reaction is the dependent
variable.
• In a study to determine the effect of temperature on
plant pigmentation, the independent variable
(cause) is the temperature, while the amount of
pigment or color is the dependent variable (the
effect).
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 D E P E N D E N T VA R I ABL E
• The dependent variable is the condition that
you measure in an experiment.
• You are assessing how it responds to a change
in the independent variable, so you can think
of it as depending on the independent
variable.
• Sometimes the dependent variable is called the
"responding variable."

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 D E P E N D E N T VA RIA BLE
EXAMPLES
• If you want to know whether caffeine affects your
appetite, the presence/absence of the amount of
caffeine would be the independent variable. How
hungry you are would be the dependent variable.
• You want to compare brands of paper towels, to see
which holds the most liquid. The independent
variable in your experiment would be the brand of
paper towel. The dependent variable would be
the amount of liquid absorbed by a paper towel.

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 References
Khan IA, Biostatistics For All, 3rd
edition
Kuzma, Jan.W Basic statistics for
health sciences 3rd ed.

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 PRACTICE QUESTIONS

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