EPIB 607 - Fall 2010
Principles of Inferential Statistics in Medicine

 Tuesdays and Thursdays, 8:30-10:25am
Location: Purvis, room 25
Office hours: Thursdays 1:00-2:30pm in Purvis, room 38B or by appointment

Erica E. M. Moodie
Purvis Hall room 38B
Phone: 398-5520 (email preferable: first.last@mcgill.ca)

TA: Mireille Schnitzer (email: schnitzer@math.mcgill.ca)
TA office hours: Tuesdays 1:00-2:00pm in Purvis, room 15
Prerequisite: Basic understanding of differentiable and integral calculus.
Enrollment in the Epidemiology program at McGill University.
 
Objectives: The aim of this course is to provide students with basic principles of statistical inference applicable to clinical and epidemiologic  so that they can: (i) understand how statistical methods are used by others, (ii) apply statistical methods in their own research, and (iii) use the methods learned in this course as a foundation for more advanced biostatistics courses.
Content:

Topic:

Baldi & Moore:

Data collection, description, and display

Chapters 1, 2

Probability, Discrete and continuous distributions
Randomness and random variables
Bayes’ Theorem
Diagnostic tests

Chapters 9 - 12
Inference for means
Sampling distributions
Inference and estimating with confidence
Hypothesis testing
Paired and unpaired data
Sample size and power

Chapters 13 - 18
Inference for proportions
Paired and unpaired data
X2 test
Fisher’s exact test
Inference for epidemiologic parameters (RR, OR)
Sample size and power

Chapters 5, 19 - 22
Nonparametric statistics
Sign test
Wilcoxon rank sum
Wilcoxon signed rank test

Chapter 27
Regression and correlation
Pearson correlation, Spearman correlation
Kendall’s tau
Least squares regression
Coefficient interpretation

Chapters 3, 4, 23, 24                                                                                  


A more detailed course outline is available here. 
Texts: Required text:
Baldi B and Moore D S. The Practice of Statistics in the Life Sciences. 2009. Freeman and Company.
NOTE: Used or less expensive copies of the text may be available in the bookstore or online (e.g. at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca). You can also buy this as an eBook. 

Course notes:
These are available as a PDF document on webCT to download.

Additional resource:
 Moore D and McCabe G. Introduction to the Practice of Statistics, 6th Edition. 2007. Freeman and Company.
 Armitage P, Berry G, and Matthews JNS. Statistical Methods in Medical Research, Fourth Edition. 2002. Blackwell Scientific Publications.
Note: These are excellent books. If you have a friend in the class with whom to share a book, you may want to consider buying one copy of this and one of Baldi & Moore.
Equipment: Hand calculators (with square root, log, and exponential function) are required.  The R software package will be introduced and used for in-class illustrations. R is available under GPL (free) at http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/R/CRAN.
Evaluation: Assignments                                                                                             20%
Mid-term exam                                                                                       30%
Project                                                                                                        10%
Final exam                                                                                                40%


The final grade will consist of a letter grade. This will be determined by taking the maximum of:

                   (Homework/Project 30% + Midterm Exam 30% + Final exam 40%)

and                                  (Homework/Project 30% + Final Exam 70%).

 
The midterm will be held in class date October 14 (closed book, but you may bring one 8x11 sheet of notes).
The project is due date November 25.
The final will be held December 7 in the EDUCATION building, room 624 (closed book, formula sheet provided).


No make-up work will be allowed for assignments unless a valid & demonstrable reason is presented
within one week of the original due date.
Comments:


Note on academic integrity:
McGill University values academic integrity.  Therefore all students must understand the meaning and consequences of cheating, plagiarism and other academic offences under the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures (see http://www.mcgill.ca/integrity/ for more information).

               
ASSIGNMENTS & SOLUTIONS, HAND-OUTS