Modern Statistical Tendencies used in Investigations in the Medical Sciences

Abstract

Introduction: The name Statistics was probably used in Egypt in 1549. The term Statistics, which was connected to the development of sovereign states, was coined in Germany in 1749 and used to designate the systematic collection of demographic and economic data by states.

Objective: To present the most relevant and current statistical techniques in clinical medicine and epidemiology, as well as to show examples of the use of these techniques.

Material and Methods: Review of the literature on the subject; presentation of some examples developed in class by professors of the subject Research Methodology and Statistics in Medical Sciences.

Development: From the very beginnig, Statistics was used to characterize data based on their properties, as well as to develop information summary measures.

In the modern era, procedures and techniques were designated to facilitate valid inferences to the universe from the sampling theory, whose foundation is the probability theory.

Conclusions: There is a need for the application of modern techniques and especially the multivariate ones used to explain biological phenomena, which cannot be explained by one or two variables. This makes possible that our universities, scientific research centers, and companies conduct studies using statistical techniques that involve many variables, which are supposed to be related to the variable under study.