Statistics and medicine, a marriage of convenience
The art of healing is not an exact science: an identical treatment, curative or preventive, applied to several groups of sick or healthy individuals, often yields paradoxical results, given the astonishing variety of living things. Whether it is to compare the effects of different drugs or placebos, to determine an ideal body mass index or to quantify the reliability of a screening test, the use of statistical and probabilistic reasoning proves indispensable in medicine.
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Drug versus placebo
Choosing the best treatment for a particular condition is a delicate matter. Several factors come into play. Statistical methods can help establish a treatment's effectiveness or compare several treatments. Placebos play an important role in this process.
Two statistical paradoxes in medicine
Statistics (like probability theory) is a fascinating field full of paradoxes. These anomalies are usually harmless and inconsequential. Yet they become dangerous when medical researchers or practitioners stumble over statistical logic and make risky decisions based on misleading intuitions...
Body mass index
According to the World Health Organization, the Quetelet index—also known as body mass index, or BMI—provides an indicator of the "ideal" weight for good health. Why is this index used, and how did Quetelet devise it?
The saga of medical curves (1)
Curves for visualizing medical data.
Bayes' theorem: a tool for physicians
Bayes' theorem, which concerns conditional probabilities, has many medical applications as an aid to diagnosis and prognosis.
Odds ratio: relative risks
In healthcare, a common question is whether there is an association between a risk factor such as diabetes and a disease such as cataracts. Questions of this kind can be addressed using a mathematical concept: the odds ratio.