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Aims

  • To act as a professional focus for all biostatistics within the University of Otago
  • To collaborate with the Division of Health Sciences' clinical and scientific staff, and other staff carrying out health research, in the development of high quality interdisciplinary research programmes, paying particular attention to excellence in terms of the statistical components of their design, implementation, analysis, and reporting
  • To provide high quality and innovative postgraduate training in statistical methodology for statisticians, epidemiologists, and research workers from other disciplines involved in clinical and health services research, both within the Health Sciences Division and in the wider research environment
  • To provide training in the understanding of statistical methodology for undergraduate students in medicine and related fields
  • To develop, evaluate, and implement new statistical methodology relevant to clinical, epidemiological, and health research
  • To provide advice and support to students and research workers in the Division of Health Sciences

Consulting

The statistician who supposes that his main contribution to the planning of an experiment will involve statistical theory, finds repeatedly that he makes his most valuable contribution simply by persuading the investigator to explain why he wishes to do the experiment...

Gertrude M Cox

Biostatistical consultancy involves advice on study design, methodology, computer software, data analysis and preparation, and revision of articles and reports. The biostatisticians can also act as collaborators during research analysis or on long term studies, and provide training in statistical methods.

There is no charge for consultation services provided by biostatistical consultancy staff for Health researchers in the division of Health Sciences and the Otago District Health Board.  However, biostatistical work should be costed as part of research grant applications.

Priorities for statistical consulting are:

  • Collaborative research with teams funded by the Health Research Council (HRC)
  • Other HRC projects
  • Non-HRC funded collaborative research projects
  • Other research projects
  • Support for PhD Students

The consulting statisticians always have plenty of work to do so make sure you make an appointment well in advance.  They are keen to see researchers at as early a stage as possible—usually this is when the research question is being refined.  PhD students should arrange for their supervisor(s) to be present at least at the first meeting.

It would be a good idea to talk to the statisticians before collecting data and definitely before entering the data into a computer. This could save a lot of time both for the statistician and the researcher.

Teaching

Biostatisticians convene/co-convene:

Biostatisticians contribute to:

Our people

The biostatistics group is a group of statisticians from the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine:

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