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GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Acknowledgement
This glossary of terms has been developed by the Department of Public Health, University of Liverpool,
and draws on a number of sources including ‘Measuring Health’ by Ann Bowling, ‘A-Z of Medical
Statistics’ by Filomena Pereira-Maxwell and ‘Epidemiological studies: a practical guide’ by Alan
Silman.
Accuracy quality of a measurement which is both correct and precise. The validity of a
measure depends on (among other factors) its accuracy.
Aquiescence response set (‘yes-saying’) respondents will more frequently endorse a
statement than disagree with its opposite.
Actuarial records public records about the demographic characteristics of the population
served.
Age-specific rate rate or frequency of occurrence of an event in a defined age group.
Analysis of variance (ANOVA) significance test for comparing the means of a quantitative
variable between three or more groups (an extension of the independent samples t-test).
Archives ongoing records maintained by institutions within society.
Assumptions specific conditions required by significance tests and other statistical methods
in order to produce valid results.
Attributable risk difference in the risk of a particular event between two groups (typically
the difference between the risk in an exposed population and that in an unexposed
population). Also known as absolute risk difference.
Attrition loss of sample members over time in longitudinal and experimental research.
Bias deviation in one direction of the observed value from the true value of the variable being
measured (as opposed to random error).
Bivariate statistics descriptive statistics for the analysis of the association between two
variables (e.g. contingency tables, correlation).
Blind concealing the assignment of people to experimental or control group in experiments.
Concealment can be from the subjects only (‘single blind’), or from both the subjects and
the research personnel carrying out the intervention and assessment ('double blind’).
Box-and-whisker plot graphical method for displaying ordinal variables. Also useful to
describe quantitative variables which have a skewed distribution.
Case a single unit in a study (e.g. a person or setting, such as a clinic, hospital).
Case study a research method which focuses on the circumstances, dynamics and complexity
of a single case, or a small number of cases.
Case-control study analytical observational study which aims to investigate the relationship
between an exposure or risk factor and one or more outcomes. This is done by selecting a
group of subjects known to have the outcome or disease of interest (cases) and comparing
their exposure with that of a group of subjects known not to have the disease in question
(controls).
Categorical variable variable whose values represent different categories or classes of the
same feature.
Causal hypothesis a statement that it is predicted that one phenomenon will be the result of
one or more other phenomena that precede it in time.
Causal relationships observed changes ('the effect’) in one variable are the result of prior
changes in another.
Censoring in the context of follow-up studies, the event (e.g. death) of a subject is said to be
censored if the same event is not observed within the follow-up period for that subject.
Note: Loss to follow-up frequently leads to censoring since the event remains unknown.