200126P - DESCRIPTIVE AND ANALYTIC STUDY

Presented at CRC course held at King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh on 26 January 2020. 09:00 am - 10:00 am by Professor Omar Hasan Kasule Sr. MB ChB (MUK), MPH (Harvard), DrPH (Harvard), Chairman of the KFMC IRB

CHARACTERISTICS OF EPIDEMIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION

• Epidemiological methodology follows the scientific method.

• Epidemiological investigation is not as deterministic as laboratory investigation but is cheap and easy. 

• Epidemiology is empirical: epidemiology relies on and respects only empirical findings. Empiricism refers to reliance on physical proof. 

• Epidemiology is inductive: induction is building a theory on several individual observations. 

• Refutative: Refutation is basically refusal of a supposition until it is proved otherwise. 

DESCRIPTIVE AND ANALYTIC STUDY DESIGNS

DATA ANALYSIS

• Data summarization,

• Estimation,

• Interpretation.

DATA VALIDATION

• Simple manual inspection of the data is needed before statistical procedures.

• Preliminary examination consists of looking at tables and graphics.

• Descriptive statistics are used to detect errors, ascertain the normality of the data, and know the size of cells.

• Missing values may be imputed or incomplete observations may be eliminated. 

DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS

• Mean and standard deviation.

• Proportion (prevalence and variance). 

ANALYTIC STATISTICS: ASSOCIATION

• T student statistic, 

• Chi-square statistic,

• Linear correlation,

• Regression coefficients. 

ANALYTIC STATISTICS: EFFECT

• Odds Ratio,

• Risk Ratio,

• Rate difference.