Essentials of Biostatistics. 4. Numerical methods to summarize data

Abstract

Methods of collection of data are described in the previous article of this series(1). When data on, say, 300 infants with acute respiratory infection are available, how to make sense out of them? The initial step is to make a summary of the data in such a manner that none of their important features is lost. This is done by tabulation and by calculating a few summary values that can adequately represent data. Before we go on to the summarization methods, it is necessary to describe various scales of measurement and types of data available, because the summarization methods depend on these features.