| vital statistics | Used for general articles concerning statistics of births, deaths, marriages, etc. (12 Dec 1998) |
|---|---|
| national centre for health statistics | A centre in the public health service which is primarily concerned with the collection, analysis, and dissemination of health statistics on vital events and health activities to reflect the health status of people, health needs, and health resources. (12 Dec 1998) |
| statistics | The science and art of collecting, summarizing, and analyzing data that are subject to random variation. The term is also applied to the data themselves and to the summarization of the data. (12 Dec 1998) |
| statistics, nonparametric | A class of statistical methods applicable to a large set of probability distributions used to test for correlation, location, independence, etc. In most nonparametric statistical tests, the original scores or observations are replaced by another variable containing less information. An important class of nonparametric tests employs the ordinal properties of the data. Another class of tests uses information about whether an observation is above or below some fixed value such as the median, and a third class is based on the frequency of the occurrence of runs in the data. (12 Dec 1998) |
| descriptive statistics | Numerical values such as mean, median, and mode which describe the chief features of a group of scores, without regard to a larger population. (05 Mar 2000) |
| inferential statistics | Statistics from which an inference is made about the nature of a population; the purpose is to generalise about the population, based upon data from the sample selected from the population. (05 Mar 2000) |
| academic medical centres | Medical complexes consisting of medical school, hospitals, clinics, libraries, administrative facilities, etc. (12 Dec 1998) |
| advance medical directives | Advance directives preserve the person's right to accept or reject a course of medical treatment even after that person becomes mentally or physically incapacitated to the point of being unable to communicate those wishes. There ared two basic types of advance directives: (1) a living will, in which the person outlines specific treatment guidelines that are to be followed by health care providers; (2) a health care proxy (also called a power of attorney for healthcare decision making) in which the person designates a trusted individual to make medical decisions in the event that he or she becomes too incapacitated to make such decisions. Advance directive requirements vary greatly from one jurisdiction to another and should therefore be drawn up in consultation with an attorney who is familiar with the laws of the particular jurisdiction. (This entry is based upon material from the National MS Society). (12 Mar 2000) |
| american medical association | Professional society representing the field of medicine. (12 Dec 1998) |
| genetics, medical | A field of human genetics which entails the reliable prediction of certain human disorders as a function of the lineage and/or genetic makeup of any two parents or potential parents. (12 Dec 1998) |
| reference books, medical | Books in the field of medicine intended primarily for consultation. (12 Dec 1998) |
| regional medical programs | Coordination of activities and programs among health care institutions within defined geographic areas for the purpose of improving delivery and quality of medical care to the patients. These programs are mandated under u.s. Public law 89-239. (12 Dec 1998) |
| medical | Pertaining to medicine or to the treatment of diseases, pertaining to medicine as opposed to surgery. (18 Nov 1997) |
| medical anatomy | Anatomy in its bearing upon the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. (05 Mar 2000) |
| medical assistance | Financing of medical care provided to public assistance recipients. (12 Dec 1998) |