Sources for this lecture include G. van Belle (2002) Statistical Rules of Thumb, HRSA (1998) Analytic Methods in Maternal and Child Health; M. A. Patton (1990) Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods; R.M. Page, G.E. Cole & T.C. Timmreck (1995) Basic Epidemiologic Methods and Biostatistics, T. Greenhalgh’s lectures at: http://bmj.com/ and V.H. Massey (1991) Nursing Research. A study and learning tool.

Before getting into the statistical issues, the following few slides are a brief review of the basics of inferential statistics.

“Recall” - Hypotheses address questions about whether an observed difference in health status, risk and protective factors, health services or health systems indicators are real or spurious. Hypotheses of mean, proportion or rate can be tested by comparing them to a standard.