BIOSTATISTICS:

Biostatistics is the branch of statistics responsible

for the proper interpretation of scientific data
generated in the biology, public health and other
health sciences (i.e., the biomedical sciences).
In these sciences, subjects (patients, mice, cells, etc.) exhibit
considerable variation in their response to stimuli. This variation
may be due to different treatments or it may be due to chance,
measurement error, or other characteristics of the individual
subjects. Biostatistics is particularly concerned with disentangling
these different sources of variation. It seeks to distinguish
between correlation and causation, and to make valid inferences
from known samples about the populations from which they were
drawn.
E.g: the results of treating patients with two therapies justify the
conclusion that one treatment is better than the other?
In biostatics samples are taken from the population to check any
variable.
Biostatisticians regularly engage in interdisciplinary collaborations
and advance their discipline through pursuit of methodological
development of statistical methods for biomedical applications.
Biostatistics is a broad discipline encompassing the application of
statistical theory to real-world problems, the practice of designing
and conducting biomedical experiments and clinical trials
(experiments with human subjects), the study of related
computational algorithms and display of data, and the
development of mathematical statistical theory. Biostatistics is
integral to the advance of knowledge in biology, health policy,
clinical medicine, public health policy, health economics,

proteomics, genomics, and other disciplines. Biostatisticians

facilitate biomedical research by providing methodological
expertise and by closely collaborating with scientists and
physician researchers.

Who is a Biostatistician?
Biostatisticians are specialists in the
evaluation of data as scientific evidence.
They understand the generic construct of data and they provide
the mathematical framework that transcends the scientific
context to generalize the findings. Their expertise includes the
design and conduct of experiments, the mode and manner in
which data are collected, the analysis of data, and the
interpretation of results. Meaningful generalization of
experimental results requires the application of an appropriate
mathematical framework for the scientific context. The validity of
research results depends on this application and the
reproducibility of the experimental methods. Biostatisticians use
mathematics to enhance science and bridge the gap between
theory and practice.

How Biostatistician use statistics?

A biostatisticians work is driven by questions relating to the
health of peopleas individuals or members of population. For
example, how might the benefit of a treatment vary based on an
individuals characteristics, such as genotype or exposures? Every
research question poses a unique challenge. Biostatisticians
consider the nature of information available from sources such as
genomic studies or large medical discharge records databases,
and then how the information was collected and what populations

it represents.

Differential and Inferential Statistics:

Statistics is the study of numerical data. It deals with the
gathering, presentation, management, organization, calculation
and analysis of usually vast numerical data.
There are majorly two kinds of divisions of statistics:
1. Descriptive Statistics
2. Inferential Statistics
The statistical analysis enables us to draw conclusions about
several different statistical situations, both in descriptive and
inferential statistics. Both the segments are equally important.
Both have different objectives.
Basically, the descriptive statistics describes the features of the
sample data quantitatively. On the other hand, the inferential
statistics does inferences for the population data from which the
given samples were taken.

Basic Terms to Understand Differential and

Inferential Statistics:
1. Population is defined as the whole set of data, individuals,
events or objects etc on which the researcher is performing
research.
2. Sample is defined a subset of the population. Since it is
difficult to handle and analyze each and every member in
the population, a smaller and representative portion from the
population is picked up. This is called sample.
3. Data is defined as the information collected from the
population.

Differential Statistics:
The differential/descriptive statistics
is the type of statistical analysis which
helps to describes about the data in
some meaningful way. This statistics is
used to describe quantitatively about

the important features of the data or

information.

The descriptive statistics gives the summaries of the given

sample as well as the observations done. These summaries or
descriptions can either be graphical or quantitative.

E.g: In soccer, the individual performance of each player is said

to be the descriptive statistics.
However, descriptive statistics does not reach at conclusions
beyond the given data or hypothesis made by the researcher. It is
just a simple way of describing the data.

Generally, the kinds of measure that are used with descriptive

statistics are:
1) Measures of Central Tendency :
The measure of central tendency describes the data which lies in
the center of a given frequency distribution. The main measures
of central tendency are mean and median and mode.
2) Measures of Spread :
The measure of spread describes the how the scores are spread
over the whole distribution. Standard deviation, variance, range,
absolute deviation are included in the measures of spread.
3) Graphical Representation:
There are several different types of graphs that are used to
describe about the statistical data. These graphs are histogram,

bar graph, box and whisker plot, line graph, scatter plot, ogive,
pie chart and many more.
Examples of Descriptive Statistics:
i) Estimation of number of students (boys and girls separately) in
a school.
ii) Population of particular country or city.
iii) Frequency of the variables.
iv) Estimation of number of damaged or cavity teeth by a dentist.

Inferential Statistics:
Inferential statistics is the type of statistics
which deals with making conclusions.
It inferences about the predictions for the population. It also
analyses the sample.
Basically, the inferential statistics is the procedure of drawing
predictions and conclusions about the given data which is
subjected to the random variations. Inferential statistics includes
detection and prediction of observational and sampling errors.
This type of statistics is being utilized in order to make estimates
and test the hypotheses using given data.

The inferential statistics may be defined as the answer of the

question "what is needed to be done next". This provides an
information about the further surveys and experiments. Inferential
statistics enables the researcher to draw conclusions before the
implementation of some particular organizational policy.

There are two major divisions of inferential statistics:

1) Confidence Interval:
The confidence interval is represented in the form of an interval
that provides a range for the parameter of given population.
2) Hypothesis Test:
Hypothesis tests are also known as tests of significance which
tests some claim for the population by analyzing sample.

Examples of Inferential Statistics:

i) Average marks obtained by all the students.
ii) Grades or percentile of the scores.
iii) Average score in cricket.
iv) Prediction by a dentist about the teeth that are susceptible to
have cavity or damage in future.