Clinical Biostatistics

Postgraduate | 2026

Course page banner
area/catalogue icon
Area/Catalogue
BIOL 5033
Course ID icon
Course ID
203059
Level of study
Level of study
Postgraduate
Unit value icon
Unit value
6
Course level icon
Course level
5
Study abroad and student exchange icon
Inbound study abroad and exchange
Inbound study abroad and exchange
The fee you pay will depend on the number and type of courses you study.
No
University-wide elective icon
University-wide elective course
No
Single course enrollment
Single course enrolment
No
alt
Note:
Course data is interim and subject to change

Course overview

The aim of this course is to enable students to use correctly statistical methods of particular relevance to evidence-based health care and to advise clinicians on the application of these methods and interpretation of the results. The content includes: Clinical trials (equivalence trials, cross-over trials); Clinical agreement (Bland-Altman methods, kappa statistics, intraclass correlation); Statistical process control (special and common causes of variation; quality control charts); Diagnostic tests (sensitivity, specificity, ROC curves); Meta-analysis (systematic reviews, assessing heterogeneity, publication bias, estimating effects from randomized controlled trials, diagnostic tests and observational studies).

Course learning outcomes

  • See Study Guides at: https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/jyzMCmO5QMCjMl1XJtJi1URPVES?domain=bca.edu.au/
  • Understand and apply Continuous Quality Improvement to medical studies and hospital data including detection of special and common causes of variation
  • Explain and apply appropriate measures of agreement and consistency for both raters and continuous measurements
  • Calculate measures of the performance of diagnostic tests and interpret these via ROC curves where appropriate
  • Describe systematic reviews and undertake meta-analyses of various types of studies
  • Understand advantages and disadvantages of cross-over designs in general and be able to analyse 2×2 designs
  • Explain the role of, and the relationships between, non-inferiority, efficacy and equivalence trials
  • Calculate and report sample sizes for non-inferiority and equivalence trials
  • Choose the appropriate graphical and/or statistical methods to answer clinical questions
  • Effectively communicate the results of, and ideas behind statistical analyses performed to clinicians and statisticians

Prerequisite(s)

N/A

Corequisite(s)

N/A

Antirequisite(s)

N/A