Data Science for Health Research

This course provides a first look at the R statistical environment. Beginning with step-by-step instructions on downloading and installing the software, learners will first practice navigating R and its companion, RStudio. Then, they will read data into the R environment and prepare it for summary and analysis. A wide variety of concepts will be covered, including sorting rows of data, grouping by variables, summarizing over variables, pivoting, and creating new variables. Then, learners will visualize their data, creating publication-ready plots with relatively little effort. Finally, learners will understand how to set up a project workflow for their own analyses. All concepts taught in this course will be covered with multiple modalities: slide-based lectures, guided coding practice with the instructor, and independent but structured practice.

This course introduces learners to the analysis of binary/dichotomous outcomes. Learners will become familiar with fundamental tests for two-group comparisons and statistical inference plus prediction more broadly using logistic regression. They will understand the connection between prevalence, risk ratios, and odds ratios. By the end of this course, learners will be able to understand how binary outcomes arise, how to use R to compare proportions between two groups, how to fit logistic regressions in R, how to make predictions using logistic regression, and how to assess the quality of these predictions. All concepts taught in this course will be covered with multiple modalities: slide-based lectures, guided coding practice with the instructor, and independent but structured exercises.