Our Biostatistics team, established over a decade ago, provides expert biostatistical support to child health researchers. The team collaborates closely with researchers across study design, implementation, and analysis stages, offering comprehensive support to facilitate meaningful data insights.
The insights gained from research findings ultimately stem from extracting information, with context, from collected and analysed data - as such, it is vital that all research studies have a robust design and analysis plan that is aligned with the research question at hand. Our Biostatistics team work closely with many other Professional Services platforms at the Institute – including ICT, Biospecimens Service, Laboratory Technologies, Grant Development, Governance - as a cohesive unit to streamline the execution of all research projects of all sizes and complexities.
Biostatistics
Biostatistics is a vital component of almost every research project conducted at the Institute. In broad terms, biostatistics applies statistical methods to medical and health-related research. The familiar and visible aspect of biostatistics is the analysis of study data. This process typically involves identifying the appropriate analysis (often modelling) technique and applying it to the study data to address a specific research question or test a formal hypothesis.
Biostatisticians add significant value at every stage of a research project, particularly in early phases like study design, sampling, and question formulation. Biostatisticians can also assist with the preparation of research findings for presentation, through generating graphics and ensuring research findings are precisely and accurately interpreted and communicated.
We strongly encourage all researchers to engage with a biostatistician as early as possible in their work, particularly prior to the completion of the study design phase of their research project.
Researchers within, and collaborating with, The Kids Research Institute Australia have access to support from the Institute's Biostatistics team. The team are experienced in most health research areas, with expertise pertaining to epidemiological studies, clinical research, clinical trials, laboratory studies and genetics studies. The team offers free consultations to all researchers and students, before support transitions onto a cost recovery model.
Our team is proficient in a range of major statistical software, including R, SPSS, SAS and Stata.
The Biostatistics team provides support including (but not limited to):
- Research advice (hypothesis formulation, study design, sample size calculations)
- Data manipulation (merging, restructuring and generation of new variables)
- Data analysis (descriptive statistics, hypothesis testing, modelling)
- Result reporting (generation of graphics, manuscript writing)
The team are focused on implementing the principles of 'reproducible research', whereby all original data files remain unmodified, and all statistical code is kept and documented ensuring all statistical results supporting research findings are repeatable and verifiable. Where possible, these are made publicly available.
Some research questions and data may present unique scenarios whereby no current statistical methodology can be applied to address the research question at hand. In this situation, the team are able to work with researchers to pursue the development of new statistical methodologies.