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Biostatistics

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Encyclopedia of Public Health

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Introduction

Biostatistics is the application of statistics in health‐related fields, including public health, medicine and biology, and the development of new tools to study these areas. Biostatistics constitutes the quantitative foundation for public health practice and research. It comprises the reasoning and methods for using data as evidence to address public health and biomedical questions.

Statistics itself has various definitions, but all definitions have as essential components that statistics is a science of generating information and knowledge through the collection, analysis and interpretation of data that are subject to random variation. It is a curious amalgam of mathematics, logic and judgment (Altman 1999). Statistics has its origins in three branches of human activity: first, the study of mathematics as applied to games of chance; second, the collection of data as part of the art of governing a country; and third, the study of errors in...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Medical Statistics and Informatics, School of Medicine and School of Public Health, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

    Jelena Marinković

Authors
  1. Jelena Marinković
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Network EUROlifestyle Research Association Public Health Saxony-Saxony Anhalt e.V. Medical Faculty, University of Technology, Fiedlerstr. 27, 01307, Dresden, Germany

    Wilhelm Kirch (Professor Dr. Dr.) (Professor Dr. Dr.)

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© 2008 Springer-Verlag

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Marinković, J. (2008). Biostatistics . In: Kirch, W. (eds) Encyclopedia of Public Health. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5614-7_255

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5614-7_255

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-5613-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-5614-7

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