Statistics for medical studies

Medical statisticians help design studies, perform data cleaning and analysis, and interpret findings. Many methods are available, and statisticians help identify and make recommendations. Poorly designed and interpreted studies may lead to wrong conclusions, and statisticians help ensure better findings that can be translated into medical practice and policy change.

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Professor Mavuto Mukaka is a Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology at the University of Oxford, UK. He is the Head of Statistics in the University of Oxford's Clinical Trials Support Group (CTSG) based in Thailand at the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU). He is a Visiting Professor of Tropical Medicine at Mahidol University in Thailand and a Visiting Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Malawi. He is an Honorary Professor of Biostatistics at the Malawi University of Science and Technology.  

His role includes coordinating statisticians in his team; advising researchers in the design of the different types of studies that includes determining the appropriate sample sizes needed to answer research hypotheses; writing statistical sections of the study protocols; reviewing methodological aspects of study protocols; data analysis; providing statistical clinics to researchers; co-authoring on manuscripts; teaching, supervision of MSc students and co-supervision of DPhil/PhD students at the University of Oxford and beyond; provision of statistical training to researchers in the University of Oxford Tropical Health Network, and sitting on Data and Safety Monitoring Boards (DSMBs) both as a study statistician for MORU studies as well as a DSMB Statistician for studies from the other institutions. In addition, he is an active researcher in statistical methodology for medical research studies. He is also a reviewer and statistical editor in international biomedical science journals.