Teaching Statistics in Health Sciences: The Potential of Simulations in Public Health

This paper is a collection of thoughts from multiple discussions about the importance of appreciating and embracing statistical thinking in public health research and education. We think that statistical simulations can play an important role in fostering statistical reasoning in public health and that they can be a great didactic tool for students to generate and learn from data. Two main points are of relevance here. First, simulations can foster critical thinking and improve our reasoning about public health problems by going from theoretical thoughts to practical implementation of designing a computer experiment. Second, simulations can support researchers and their students to better understand statistical concepts used when describing and analysing population health in terms of distributions. Overall, we advocate for the use of more simulations in public health research and education to strengthen statistical reasoning when studying the health of populations.

本论文汇集了多场讨论的核心观点，围绕公共卫生研究与教育中重视并接纳统计思维的重要性展开。我们认为，统计模拟（statistical simulations）在公共卫生领域的统计推理能力培养中可发挥关键作用，同时也是帮助学生生成数据并从中学习的优质教学工具。本文聚焦两大核心论点：其一，统计模拟可通过从理论构想转向计算机实验设计的实践落地，培养批判性思维，提升我们对公共卫生问题的推理能力；其二，统计模拟能够帮助研究者及其学生更好地理解以分布视角描述与分析人群健康时所用到的统计学概念。综上，我们倡导在公共卫生研究与教育中更多地运用统计模拟，以强化人群健康研究中的统计推理能力。