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Review
. 2024 Dec;115(6):839-843.
doi: 10.17269/s41997-024-00866-w. Epub 2024 Mar 13.

A retrospective and prospective study of biostatistics in Canada

Richard J Cook  1 , Erica E M Moodie  2
Affiliations
Review

A retrospective and prospective study of biostatistics in Canada

Richard J Cook et al. Can J Public Health. 2024 Dec.

Abstract
in English, French

Biostatistics is foundational to public health research and Canada has a history of high impact contributions both in seminal methodological advances and in the rigorous application of methods for the design or analysis of public health studies. In this article, we provide a brief and personal review of selected contributions from Canadian biostatisticians to fields such as survival and life history analysis, sampling, clinical trial methodology, environmental risk assessment, infectious disease epidemiology, and early work on prediction. We also provide a brief look forward at the upcoming needs and future directions of biostatistical research.

RéSUMé: La biostatistique est fondamentale pour la recherche en santé publique et le Canada a un historique de contributions à fort impact, tant dans les avancées méthodologiques majeures que dans l’application rigoureuse de méthodes pour la conception ou l’analyse d’études de santé publique. Dans cet article, nous présentons un examen bref et personnel des contributions des biostatisticiens canadiens dans des domaines tels que l’analyse de la survie et de l’histoire de vie, l’échantillonnage, la méthodologie des essais cliniques, le risque environnemental, l’épidémiologie des maladies infectieuses et les premiers travaux sur la prédiction et la classification. Nous fournissons également un bref aperçu des besoins à venir et des orientations futures de la recherche biostatistique.

Keywords: Biostatistics; Public health; Scientific method.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval: Not applicable. Consent to participate: Not applicable. Consent for publication: Not applicable. Conflict of interest: The authors declare no competing interests.

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