Collaborating With a Statistician: Bringing a Clinical Perspective to Statistics

Peruse the author lists of articles in any medical journal, and you will quickly appreciate that research is performed by teams. Similar to any team that you might encounter in sports, there is a distribution of labor among the research team members that makes them operate effectively and efficiently. Although statisticians are critical members of the research team, they are frequently engaged to assist with analysis well after the study has been designed and executed. The statistical methods used to answer a research question directly affects the study design, the data collection instruments, and the operationalization of the variables. Therefore, the consequence of delaying a statistician’s engagement is that the collected data may have significant limitations that statistical techniques alone cannot fix to answer the intended questions. However, involving a statistician from the onset on a research team does not relegate all statistical responsibilities to the statistician. It is still...