Introduction to Statistical Computing

The aim of this subject is to equip students with the knowledge and skills required for moderate to high level data manipulation and management in preparation for statistical analysis of data typically encountered in health and medical research. Students will gain hands-on experience with two major statistical software packages (Stata and R), learning to efficiently manage and manipulate data, display and summarize data, check and clean datasets, and link files using unique and non-unique identifiers. Additionally, students will acquire fundamental graphing and programming skills for each of these software packages and will be introduced to key principles of confidentiality and privacy in data storage, management, and analysis.