07 Jan Describe a hypothesis

MATH225 Statistical Reasoning for the Health Sciences

Week 1 discussion

Basic Statistics Data Used in Everyday Life

Present two different types of data, or variables, used in the health field. Examples could be blood pressure, temperature, pH, pain rating scales, pulse oximetry, % hematotcrit, minute respiration, gender, age, ethnicity, among many others. Then classify each of those variables as qualitative vs quantitative as well as nominal, ordinal, interval or ratio and justify your classifications. Finally, explain one type of analysis that could be done with one or both of the variables you selected. Your responses to other students can explain additional analyses that could be done with the variables they selected.

MATH225 Statistical Reasoning for the Health Sciences

Week 2 discussion

Graphing and Describing Data in Everyday Life

Consider two different data sets and then for each data set, propose your idea of what graph would best represent the key information. For each, be sure to include the type of graph along with what would be shown on each axis. The key data in the first data set is a list of all the injuries that a clinic saw in a month. The other data set has key data on the number of minutes that each patient spent in the waiting room of a doctor’s office. You can make assumptions about other information or variables that are included in each data set.

MATH225 Statistical Reasoning for the Health Sciences

Week 3 discussion

The Normal Distribution

Many variables in medicine follow a normal distribution where there are approximately an equal number of values below the mean as above the mean. Describe two variables that would probably follow a normal distribution. Also note which of the two variables would be likely to have a larger standard deviation and why.

As an alternative question, what are some other potential probability distributions in the health care field such as bimodal, skewed, or exponential and give variables that would probably follow that distribution.

MATH225 Statistical Reasoning for the Health Sciences

Week 4 discussion

Probability

Consider when you are listening to a new patient who says they have had a fever for 3 days. You would use your knowledge and experience to come to a diagnosis. What changes those probabilities? Is it age, is it other symptoms, is it new study results? What is the source of these probabilities and what causes these probabilities to change? This discussion is not to debate diagnoses, but to focus on the sources and influences on probabilities.

MATH225 Statistical Reasoning for the Health Sciences

Week 5 discussion

Confidence Intervals

Thinking of the many variables tracked by hospitals and doctors’ offices, confidence intervals could be created for many of them. What variable might be most helpful in your work to be able to create an interval within which 95% of patients would fall? What would limit the ability to create such an interval?

MATH225 Statistical Reasoning for the Health Sciences

Week 6 discussion

Hypothesis Testing

Describe a hypothesis test study that would help your work or conclusions in some way. Describe what variable would be tested and what would be your guess of the value of that variable. Then include how the result, if the null were rejected or not, might change your conclusions or actions in some way.

MATH225 Statistical Reasoning for the Health Sciences

Week 7 discussion

Correlation and Regression

If a regression analysis was to be completed on body mass index (BMI), what could be an independent variable in that analysis? Why? If we could, what other independent variables should be included in the analysis? What statistic(s) would show the value of that regression in understanding BMI?

Alternatively, find an article that uses regression analysis to study a medical concern. In that study, what was the dependent variable and what were the independent variable(s)? Further, how would you use this study to highlight the difference between correlations and causation?