Title of article :
Statistical and epidemiological methodology for sheep
research: The needs, the problems, the solutions
Author/Authors :
P.J. Cripps، نويسنده ,
Issue Information :
ماهنامه با شماره پیاپی سال 2008
Abstract :
There are many rewards for researchers who involve a statistician from the very inception of their research project. Benefits include
optimized study designs which result in the use of fewer experimental animals, more effective answers to the questions of interest
and an increased probability of successful publication. However, many veterinary research projects do not involve statisticians at all,
or only do so at a late stage; this is reflected by many errors in project design and data analysis among published papers of veterinary
interest. This situation is partly due to the absence of communication between clinical researchers and statisticians, perhaps because
neither party understands how the other works. A solution might be to educate each group on what the other has to offer, perhaps
by some form of interdisciplinary workshops. Clinical research with sheep is often constrained to use small samples. This places
additional strains on traditional Frequentist statistical analyses: the results tend to lack statistical power, so there is a high likelihood
that they will not be statistically significant. In addition, it is difficult to combine the results of more than one study. Many of these
difficulties could be overcome if the analysis used a Bayesian approach. This would require changes in the way that researchers and
journal referees think, but once this inertia has been overcome Bayesian statistics may well become the methods of choice.
© 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords :
clinicalresearch , health , disease , Measurement , flock , Planning , Health management , preventive medicine , epidemiology , Welfare , Sheep
Journal title :
Small Ruminant Research
Journal title :
Small Ruminant Research