ABSTRACT
Department of Biostatistics, Gillings School of Global Public Health, and Injury Prevention
Research Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA & Institute for Social
and Health Sciences, University of South Africa, Johannesburg, South Africa
Statistical methods are concerned with ways to ‘control’ uncertainty, i.e. reduce variability and reduce sampling uncertainty, in order to understand estimates of characteristics or relationships among quantitative factors in a population. The issues presented in this chapter are meant as an introduction to some of the statistical considerations that engineers, road safety experts and policy makers must take into account as they try to understand the factors involved in reducing the burden of disease from road accidents. The focus is not on presenting specifics of various statistical methodologies, but on providing some understanding of key concepts and principles – basic issues of sampling, probability distributions, understanding uncertainty and variability, common research study designs, and concepts of statistical inference. The unique characteristics of road transport research data are highlighted and their impact on statistical methods is discussed.
