Biostatistics (POPH90013)
Graduate courseworkPoints: 12.5On Campus (Parkville)
About this subject
Contact information
Semester 1
Melbourne School of Population and Global Health
OR
Currently enrolled students:
- General information: https://ask.unimelb.edu.au
- Email: Contact Stop 1
Future Students:
- Further Information: MSPGH Website
- Email: Enquiry Form
Overview
Availability | Semester 1 |
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Fees | Look up fees |
This subject is compulsory for students enrolled in the Master of Public Health, Master of Epidemiology and the Master of Science (Epidemiology). Students should enrol in this subject early in their program of study.
The subject introduces the fundamental concepts of statistics and the essential methods required to equip students to perform basic statistical analyses and interpret research findings in the public health setting.
Intended learning outcomes
At the completion of the subject, students should be able to:
- Distinguish basic data types (categorical, continuous) and summarise them appropriately using tables and graphs;
- Calculate and interpret:
- Summary measures of statistical distributions
- Confidence intervals for means and proportions
- Confidence intervals for comparison of means, comparison of proportions, risk ratio and odds ratio
- P-values for comparison of means and proportions;
- Explain the central role of sampling variability in statistical inference;
- Distinguish between statistical significance and clinical or public health relevance;
- Use Mantel-Haenszel methods to control for confounding in statistical analyses;
- Describe the importance of statistical power and perform simple sample size calculations;
- Use statistical software ‘Stata’ for basic statistical analyses.
Generic skills
Upon completion of this subject students will have developed skills in:
- Critical thinking and analysis,
- Finding, evaluating and using relevant information,
- Problem-solving,
- Written communication,
- Using computers.
Last updated: 3 November 2022