Essentials of Biostatistics and Public Health Study Guide with Questions and Answers

Distinguish between dichotomous, ordinal, continuous, and categorical variables. •Dichotomous variables have 2 possible responses (e.g., Yes/No) •Ordinal AND Categorical variables have more than two responses and responses are ordered for ordinal variables and unordered for categorical variables. •Continuous (or measurement) variables assume in theory any values between a theoretical minimum and maximum What Are the Two Areas of Applied Biostatistics? Descriptive Statistics -Summarize a sample selected from a population Inferential Statistics -Make inferences about population parameters based on sample statistics. What is a statistic? What is a parameter? •Any summary measure computed on a SAMPLE is a Statistic •Any summary measure computed on a POPULATION is a Parameter T/F: N = population size. n = sample size True Label and explain the five points of a box and whisker plot. Min Q1 Median Q3 Max. Min = Q1 = First quartile holds approximately 25% of the scores at or below it Median = a value or quantity lying at the midpoint of the values, such that there is an equal probability of falling above or below it. Q3 = Third quartile holds approx. 25% of the scores at or above it Max =