Community Medicine Cheat Sheet
Statistics Turn Data Into Decisions
Biostatistics basics: PICO and PECO, FINER test, variable types, normal distribution, p-values, type I and II errors, sensitivity and specificity for NEET-PG.
MedNext Academy | 3 min read
Clinically reviewed by Dr Shameer Deen, MBBS, MS, MRCS
Statistics Turn Data Into Decisions
Biostatistics basics: PICO and PECO, FINER test, variable types, normal distribution, p-values, type I and II errors, sensitivity and specificity for NEET-PG.
Basic statistics converts a public-health concern into a measurable research question and turns collected data into decisions, covering research questions, variable types, sampling, distributions and significance testing.
High-yield lines
- A research question is framed using PICO for interventions or PECO for exposures, covering population, intervention or exposure, comparator and outcome.
- The FINER test checks that a research question is Feasible, Interesting, Novel, Ethical and Relevant.
- Operational definitions state exactly how each concept will be measured before data collection begins.
- Qualitative variables are nominal or ordinal while quantitative variables are discrete or continuous.
- The mean, median and mode are measures of central tendency.
- Standard deviation and range are measures of dispersion.
- In a normal distribution about 68 percent of values lie within one standard deviation and about 95 percent within two.
- The null hypothesis states no association or no difference and is what the statistical test actually tests.
- A p-value below 0.05 is conventionally taken as statistically significant.
- A type I error is rejecting a true null hypothesis and a type II error is failing to reject a false null hypothesis.
- Sensitivity is the proportion of true cases correctly identified by a test.
- Specificity is the proportion of true non-cases correctly identified by a test.
- The chi-square test compares proportions between categorical groups.
- Random sampling methods include simple random, systematic, stratified and cluster sampling.
Mapped competency codes
- CM6.1
- CM6.2
- CM6.3
- CM6.4
Continue into the full chapter
This summary maps to CM6-basic-statistics-and-its-applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
What frameworks structure a research question?
PICO for intervention questions and PECO for exposure questions, both covering population, intervention or exposure, comparator and outcome, checked against the FINER test.
What does a p-value below 0.05 mean?
It is the conventional threshold for statistical significance, indicating the observed result would be unlikely if the null hypothesis were true.
How do type I and type II errors differ?
A type I error is rejecting a true null hypothesis, while a type II error is failing to reject a false null hypothesis.
What is the difference between sensitivity and specificity?
Sensitivity is the proportion of true cases a test correctly identifies, and specificity is the proportion of true non-cases it correctly identifies.
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