Cheung: 08-08

P6104: Introduction to Biostatistical Methods

Project Overview

Project reports are to be submitted by individuals or by teams of 2 or 3 persons. Each member of a team will receive the same grade for project. Each individual or team will submit the final project report by December 18, 2008, Thursday at 4PM. Each project report is a summary and review (or critique) on the statistical analyses in a published articles or a series of articles in public health or biomedical journals. These projects are intended to put the biostatistical methods studied in class in the context of biomedical or public health applications. Each individual or team is to identify the article(s) they are to report.

You will need the materials learnt in the second half of the course (after exam 1) for the project; but it may be advisable to keep an eye out for interesting articles early.

• Background: Each report should start with a concise lay description of the scientific background in the articles.

• Objective: Identify the scientific objective(s) in the articles and the relevant hypotheses. There may be more than one objective in the article. Focus on the primary objective, unless there are interesting features about the secondary analyses you would like to report.

• Critique: Comment on whether the hypotheses and the statistical tests in the article are appropriate for the scientific objectives. Determine what assumptions are made in the analyses. Are the assumptions reasonable or verifiable? If there are flaws, suggest how you would improve. In short, ask yourself if you would plan the same statistical analysis as the authors did.

• Results: Report of the results of the statistical analysis (only for the objective you consider) and interpret the results. If sufficient details are given in the article(s), re-do the analysis to verify their results.