Lucía Carrasco publishes "Introduction to statistical analysis in R", the guide to statistics in research

Statistics are of vital importance to be able to perform a good data analysis in any scientific study. Fortunately, there are many computer tools that help to perform certain complex statistical operations. Within these programs, a free and open source software should be highlighted: R. Ahora Lucía Amalia Carrasco Ribelles, predoctoral researcher at the IDIAP Jordi Gol, and Javier Marín Morales, postdoctoral researcher associated with the department of statistics and operational research of the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (UPV), have written a book to better understand this program: "Introduction to statistical analysis in R".

 

We talked to Lucía so that she could give us some of the keys to this book and better understand its usefulness for research purposes. This "introduction" aims to explain the basic concepts of statistics explained always with applicability in mind and continuously accompanied by R code to be able to put them into practice. It is an easy book to follow since the focus is more on how and when to use each concept or test than on the theoretical background behind it, without ever losing the necessary rigor. "We like to think of this book as a practical guide to data analysis," sums up Lucía Carrasco.

You can't do research without applying statistics in data analysis "since it allows researchers to understand and interpret the data collected in clinical studies and develop scientific evidence", explains Lucía. In primary care, any statistical analysis is of vital importance if, as the author comments, we want to "identify risk factors for developing a certain disease, evaluate the effectiveness of treatments (treatment group compared with a placebo group), identify trends and patterns in the behavior or development of diseases, and evaluate the quality of the data collected”.

To do a good data analysis you need a computer program that gives us technological support. In this sense, the free and open source software R is one of the tools most used by research professionals. According to Lucía Carrasco, "it offers a wide range of statistical functions (descriptive, regression, variance, survival, etc.) and graphical functions. In addition, R has a large number of packages and libraries that extend its functionality. Its use is very common in research for its advantages in terms of flexibility, customization and collaboration between researchers”.

Reading this manual will help any researcher in primary care to work efficiently on data analysis with the R program. The author lists the keys why a research professional should read this book. "The book provides an introduction to the basics of statistics, including concepts such as probability and statistical models, which can be useful for researchers who do not have a background in statistics or who want to refresh their knowledge [...] then it can be useful for researchers who already know how to do analysis in other software and want to start using R and need guidance. Finally, it can be useful for expanding the possibilities of data analysis, as the book also includes information on how to use newer R packages and libraries and can be useful for researchers who already know both statistics and R , but they want to explore new tools and techniques for data analysis”.