ABSTRACT
Biostatistics use statistical methodology to investigate problems in public health and medical care. In addition to collecting, analyzing, and retrieving data, designing experiments, and developing appropriate comparisons among population groups, biostatistics applies the techniques of inference and probability to the examination of biologic data. While interacting most continuously and closely with epidemiology, biostatistic interests extend into the congruent areas of vital statistics and demography, computer programming, computer systems and analysis, and program planning and evaluation. The chapter provides selected examples of one application of biostatistics: the collection and analysis of data on the utilization of mental hospitals and other psychiatric facilities. Population censuses provide basic statistics of a country and its geographical subdivisions by age, sex, race, socio-economic, marital status, household composition, educational level, and other characteristics of target populations.
