I do a lot of statistical analysis at my job but I'm unsure of the terminology for what I do. I work for a lab where we screen every newborn in the state for 29 genetic disorders. That's 100,000 newborns a year, and sometimes we screen certain babies twice so about 125,000 samples total. I'm constantly taking the data from our information management system and answering questions such as, "How many babies were born at <2500 grams? Of those babies, how many had a positive screening for X disorder? Of this group, how many were actually diagnosed with the disorder?" Sometimes, I'm looking at the data to answer questions about compliance to our rules. Such as, "How many hospitals submitted samples which were contaminated?" Other times, I am literally looking at the data just to see what kind of patterns or anomalies exist. I use excel for all of my analyses and, again, all of the data comes from our information management system. I didn't intend on going down this path in my career (my degree is in Biology) but management has been very pleased with my work, so it is the majority of what I do now. I also really enjoy it, and would like to be able to add this work to my resume and hopefully find a similar job. I just need to be able to properly articulate it.
What do you call this type of analysis?
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Sounds like a Public Health job. Do you work for a state health department? You would find similar jobs in a state health departments or perhaps large university hospital with a registry or that oversees a state registry. It sounds like you perform many descriptive statistics. I would look at different states public health jobs, you could also search for health science jobs and perhaps epidemiology. Depending on your experience with bench research there could also be similar jobs in labs.
What is your currently job title?
What is your currently job title?
Yes, I work for the health department. Right now my job title is simply "Scientist". My concern is that when I talk about what I do, I won't know the proper terminology. Since I'm not formally trained I sort of had to teach myself how to answer the questions my business was interested in. Also, I would love to take a course or something that would help me advance in this area, but I don't know what to look for.
Thanks!
Thanks!
Start with a 100 page introductory statistics book with applications to your area of biology (with chi-square test, t-test and regression). Then you can go to coursera.
Sometimes rsw811 works with data mining at a basic level. But you will need to know a lot more about statistical methods (this area has also become known as 'machine learning') to call it data mining.
Statisticians are little bit sceptical towards excel. One day you will need to write with code, so that there is documentation for what was done. R is a great program. R can be downloaded for free.
Employers will ask for knowledge in R, SPSS or SAS. Go to a place where they have SPSS or SAS and practice with it for two hours. Then you can truthfully say: 'I am not an expert but I have used SAS and SPSS'.
Sometimes rsw811 works with data mining at a basic level. But you will need to know a lot more about statistical methods (this area has also become known as 'machine learning') to call it data mining.
Statisticians are little bit sceptical towards excel. One day you will need to write with code, so that there is documentation for what was done. R is a great program. R can be downloaded for free.
Employers will ask for knowledge in R, SPSS or SAS. Go to a place where they have SPSS or SAS and practice with it for two hours. Then you can truthfully say: 'I am not an expert but I have used SAS and SPSS'.
Start with a 100 page introductory statistics book with applications to your area of biology (with chi-square test, t-test and regression). Then you can go to coursera.
Sometimes rsw811 works with data mining at a basic level. But you will need to know a lot more about statistical methods (this area has also become known as 'machine learning') to call it data mining.
Statisticians are little bit sceptical towards excel. One day you will need to write with code, so that there is documentation for what was done. R is a great program. R can be downloaded for free.
Employers will ask for knowledge in R, SPSS or SAS. Go to a place where they have SPSS or SAS and practice with it for two hours. Then you can truthfully say: 'I am not an expert but I have used SAS and SPSS'.
Sometimes rsw811 works with data mining at a basic level. But you will need to know a lot more about statistical methods (this area has also become known as 'machine learning') to call it data mining.
Statisticians are little bit sceptical towards excel. One day you will need to write with code, so that there is documentation for what was done. R is a great program. R can be downloaded for free.
Employers will ask for knowledge in R, SPSS or SAS. Go to a place where they have SPSS or SAS and practice with it for two hours. Then you can truthfully say: 'I am not an expert but I have used SAS and SPSS'.