"This book is aimed at anyone who needs a basic introduction to statistics in the health sciences. It is based on many years' experience teaching first year medical and health science students. Many of the examples are taken from Primary Care in the UK, which is where I worked for many years. Throughout I have tried to emphasise that Medical Statistics is not just a bag of tricks, and there are many synergies between the methods. It is now over forty years since Swinscow's original edition, and each edition reflected changes in the understanding of medical statistics. Perhaps the greatest change has occurred since the previous edition,which appeared twelve years ago.Despite the efforts of medical statisticians, there was a widespread misuse of p-values,the cornerstone of conventional statistical inference. This led some journals to ban p-values altogether. It is my view that used properly the p-value is a useful concept but this book, as in previous editions of this book, concentrates on estimation rather than just hypothesis testing. The book tries to steer the reader away from an excessive devotion to p-values, to instil a proper appreciation of their usefulness and to emphasise estimation over significance testing"--
STATISTICS AT SQUARE ONE The new edition of the popular introduction to the world of statistics for health care professionals and medical students
First published nearly three decades ago, Statistics at Square One remains one of the most popular introductions to medical statistics. Now in its twelfth edition, this international bestseller continues to be a must-have resource for anyone in need of a thorough introduction to statistics in the health sciences. Clear and accessible chapters help students with no previous background in the subject understand fundamental topics including summary statistics for quantitative and binary data, diagnostic and screening tests, populations and samples, survival analysis, correlation and regression, study design, computer modeling, and more.
This edition reflects contemporary understanding of medical statistics and emphasizes the importance of statistics in public health, including extensively updated coverage of diagnostic tests and new COVID-related examples. All figures and examples now include code to reproduce them in the R statistical software. New chapters cover the basics for understanding numbers and introduce the use of models in medical statistical analysis. Based on the author&;s many years of experience teaching medical and health science students, the latest edition of this classic textbook:
- Highlights the connections between different medical statistics methods
- Emphasizes the proper use of p-values in testing
- Features practical examples from recent literature
- Contains end-of-chapter exercises with answers, some of which are based on the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) Advanced Knowledge Test
Statistics at Square One is required reading for all medical and health care practitioners and students wanting to understand the use and value of statistical analysis in the health sciences.
