Course Description
Students will develop statistical literacy in public health. Course will provide the fundamentals of biostatistics and will apply them to public health research. Topics will include exploratory data analysis, probability theory, and how to interpret the statistical output.
Athena Title
Foundations of Biostatistics
Equivalent Courses
Not open to students with credit in BIOS 7010, BIOS 7010E
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall, spring and summer
Grading System
S/U (Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory)
Student learning Outcomes
- Students will be able to decipher and employ the language of biostatistics.
- Students will be able to interpret common graphical displays.
- Students will be able to select and interpret appropriate basic descriptive statistics for numerical and categorical variables.
- Students will be able to discuss basic probability concepts and use the normal distributions.
- Students will be able to describe the concepts of estimation, sampling variability, and standard error.
- Students will be able to make inferences about proportions and means for one- and two-sample data via hypothesis tests and confidence intervals.
- Students will be able to interpret chi-square tests for two-way tables.
- Students will be able to interpret correlation coefficients and simple linear regression models.
Topical Outline
- 1. Data Basics
a. Types of Variables
b. Scales of Measurement
c. Basics of Sampling
- 2. Exploratory Data Analysis
a. Tables
b. Graphics
c. Descriptive Statistics
- 3. Probability Theory
a. Probability Basics
b. Normal Distributions
c. Sampling Distributions
- 4. Principles of Statistical Inference
a. Confidence Intervals
b. Hypothesis Testing
- 5. Statistical Applications for Numerical Data
a. Inferences About Means
b. Scatterplots, Correlation, and Regression
- 6. Statistical Applications for Categorical Data
a. Inferences About Proportions
b. Contingency Tables and Chi-Squared Tests
