96498 - Fundamentals of Statistics for Healthcare

Learning outcomes

The course introduces the students to the essential concepts of statistical measurement, probability, and analysis in the healthcare domain. By attending this course students will be able to understand published research and to participate in more advanced courses in statistics and econometrics. Students will be acquainted with the fundamentals of statistical measurement with a specific focus on health-related data collection including qualitative data. The student will be introduced to the principles of probabilistic sampling and randomization. By the end of the course, students will learn to apply and interpret basic descriptive statistics using statistical software and will be introduced to the basics of inference and multivariate statistics.

Course contents

• Descriptive statistics: measures of central tendency, measures of dispersions and graphical displays
• Random variables and probability distributions, the Normal Distribution, the Standard Normal Distribution, the Student’s T distribution
• Populations and samples, point estimation and confidence intervals for the population mean for the case of known and unknown variance
• Hypothesis testing for the mean and for the difference between two means

Readings/Bibliography

• Rosner, B. (2016) “Fundamentals of Biostatistics”, Cengage.
  
• Agresti, A. (2018) "Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences", 5th edition. Pearson
• Plichta Kellar, S.B. and Kelvin, E.A. (2013) "Munro's statistical methods for health care research”. Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Teaching methods

During the course theoretical and practical sessions will be held. During practical sessions empirical knowledge of the proposed methods will be reached through real-world case studies and exercises performed using Microsoft Excel.

The UNIBO e-learning platform (VIRTUALE) will be used to share teaching materials and to assign periodical home assignments to students.

Assessment methods

The course has a required cumulative final examination. You must take, and pass, the final examination to receive a passing grade in the course. The final exam will be a written test (computer based). Students are required to enrol using Almaesami.

The test consists in three sections:

1. 6 multiple choice/short-answers questions (35% of Exam Score) aimed at testing your knowledge of the theoretical and applied topics covered in the course.

1. 2 open-ended questions regarding the interpretation of statistical outputs. This section is aimed at testing your ability to interpret results, both in terms of understanding statistical output, and their translation into applied conclusions (30% of Exam Score)

1. 2 applied exercises: you will receive a dataset (Excel format) and you will be asked to calculate some statistics and comment your results. You will write your answers on a Word file to be uploaded on the EOL platform. Application of statistical tools covered during the course is required together with some skills in writing formulas with math symbols (35% of Exam Score)

The test duration is 90 minutes.

(Please notice that the test structure might change; any modifications will be communicated in class).

The grading system is on a 0-30 range, the following grid applies:

• <18 failed
• 18-23 sufficient
• 24-27 good
• 28-30 very good
• 30 cum laude honors

The exam is partially open-book: students may consult the teaching materials available on Virtuale during the exam.
During the exam, students are not allowed to bring notes or printed materials, use mobile phones or other devices, browse the web, or communicate with classmates or other individuals, whether in person, by phone, via online chat, or by any other means. The use of AI is prohibited. Any use of AI, or any of the behaviours listed above, constitutes a violation of academic integrity.

Teaching tools

The following tools will be available on the UNIBO e-learning platform (VIRTUALE)

• Slides/lecture notes: summarising theoretical concepts shown in class
  
• Exercises and Solutions which will be regularly proposed to students
• Miscellanea: exercises, focus notes, sample tests will be uploaded when needed

Office hours

See the website of Sara Capacci