Topic 2: What is a normal weight for a baby?
Objectives
When you have completed the reading and participated in the taught components for this week, we hope you will be able to
- Explain the concept of a “normal” range in the context of health and populations;
- Appraise presentations of data in published reports;
- Choose data presentations for your own data that are appropriate and informative.
Preparation for this week
Read the article by Tim Cole, “Babies, bottles, breasts: is the WHO growth standard relevant?” Significance March 2007, pp6-10.
Set reading
Bland M (2000) An introduction to medical statistics (3rd ed). OUP (Oxford) – Chapters 4, 5 and 7
Additional article referenced in the lecture
Wilcox AJ (2001) On the importance – and the unimportance – of birthweight. Int J Epidemiol 30:1233-1241
Further reading and resources
Altman DG. Practical statistics for medical research. Chapman & Hall/CRC (London) Chapters 2,3 and 4 (sections 4.1-4.5)
Kirkwood BR & Sterne JAC (2003) Essential medical statistics. Blackwell (Oxford) Chapters 2 and 3
Freeman JV, Walters SJ & Campbell MJ (2008) How to display data. BMJ Blackwell (Oxford)
Tufte ER (2001) The visual display of quantitative information (2nd ed). Graphics Press (Cheshire, Connecticut)
Tufte ER (1990) Envisioning information. Graphics Press (Cheshire, Connecticut)
Rosling H (2006) Ted talks: Hans Rosling shows the best stats you’ve ever seen. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html
