Please read below discussion and respond to each discussion post (utilize your own words)

A) Statistics involves using various methods to summarize data to address specific inquiries (Corty, 2016).It plays a critical role in understanding the development of illnesses, pinpointing their origins, and evaluating the effectiveness of novel approaches to preventing and managing diseases. Through data analysis, epidemiology can guide decision-making, influence healthcare policies, and aid in the planning and delivering healthcare services to individuals. With the growing accessibility of extensive healthcare records, fresh insights into the effectiveness of healthcare treatments, drugs, and medical equipment can be obtained. These records also offer valuable information about public health and disparities in healthcare accessibility (Matranga et al., 2021). Evidence-based clinical decisions regarding the effectiveness and safety of medical treatments can be crucial in extending people's lifespans, enhancing their overall well-being, and ensuring that treatments are appropriate for their specific needs.

Statistical analysis can be an indispensable tool in my present and future professional endeavors. Considering the nature of my work in ministry, which focuses on community engagement, statistics could be crucial in helping us understand and address the community's various needs, which can range from food and shelter to health and wellness.

B) Statistics allow public health to provide resources and education more intentionally. With research, we can collect data and interpret the statistics to learn how people behave, the decisions that they make, and how risks can affect different populations (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2006). It also allows us to see how successful interventions and other prevention tactics have helped slow or eliminate disease or risks. During planning, we can see what populations need and determine what the best plan of action is to distribute materials. By using this information, planning can be more organized and a plan of action can be more clear. There is a clear priority in who needs health promotion intervention because of the data. For implementation, this information being collected could always help in working with similar populations in the future as well as seeing how the intervention helped overall during evaluation. With statistics, we can determine what was useful and what may need to be changed in the future. In the evaluation stage, statistics can show if the intervention was successful. It allows all parts of the intervention to be looked at and see if there was anything that was missed during the initial stages.

I currently do not use a lot of statistics in my work outside of recruitment data. We do have "Release Figure Methodology (RFM)" that gives us all the statistics of recruitment that I work with and see how membership numbers are going. RFM allows me to see how our chapters did in recruitment compared to the other sororities (National Panhellenic Conference, 2024). I can use this information to see how the chapter can improve its numbers for next year.

C) Statistics can assist in public health by guiding different roles to provide the best decisions based on research. Statistics help with gathering information, analyzing, and then deciphering topics related to people's well-being. This leads to interventions or options that can change how things are done for the better. According toSieber et al. (2006) statisticians play a role in topics such as public health surveillance and tracking health trends by helping develop study designs and programs that help analyze data needed for research.The National Library of Medicine (n.d.) described statistics as assisting with policy changes and ensuring that the best decisions are well-informed and have data to back them up.

As for my current career in nursing, evidence-based research is what assists us in making the best decisions for patients. Having data that describes certain interventions providing safer, holistic care is vital for patients to reach the best version of themselves. This can go back to the discussion we had previously about hand-washing. There has been years of data that proves that the best way to prevent infection is through proper hand-washing techniques.

D) Quantitative methods such as surveys and questionnaires arevery important to gather and assess clinical information to gather information on patients. I found out, by trial and error that many patients are not honest when answering questions such as "When was the last time that you took your medication", in person but sometimes will feel more comfortable filling out surveys and questionnaires.

There is a comfort level filling out forms at home versus at hospitals, clinics, and doctor's offices. Many people still mistrust healthcare professors (especially Black people) because of past historical mistreatment. Surveys are also useful in gathering support to prove that many communities are lacking in healthcare facilities and can be used to facilitate increased governmental funding to provide local health centers to provide treatment and therapy to those who need it.

E) Upon reading and reviewing Chapter One, the difference between quantitative and qualitative is quantitative research is deductive and analyzes phenomena to detect trends and frequencies. It is

typically researched by questionnaires instead of using interviewers to ask questions. It is numbers-based, countable, and/or measurable (Jain et al., 2024).. Examples include age, visual acuity, or visual field loss of a

group of people who are suffering from glaucoma. It focuses on the prevalence and strength of associations between variables. It uses closed-ended and structured questionnaires, publicly available data

resources, clinical records, and/or biologic measurements. It relies on measurable data such as numbers and physical evidence (house, 2018).

Qualitative research determines the meaning of a phenomenon through description. Qualitative data is interpretation-based, descriptive, and related to language. It helps us to understand why, how or

what happened behind behaviors. Examples of this type of study include sex or gender, sexually active or not, it answers the questions of why and how surrounding public health outbreaks and

research. Qualitative data and observations are color, smell, taste, touch, feelings typology, and shapes. Qualitative data includes observation notes, interviews, open-ended surveys, personal diaries or

journals, concept maps, and case studies. These studies rely on personal accounts or documents that detail how people think or respond in society.

F) Statistics are important techniques for summarizing data to answer questions (Corty, 2016). Statistics are a crucial aspect of public health as they are used for tracking trends in disease patterns, seeing risk factors, impacting policy changes, and evaluating interventions to improve society's health (Health Statistics, n.d.). In a health promotion intervention, statistics in planning help in seeing which issues should be prioritized, seeing where resources are sparse, and identifying risk factors. The implementation of statistics is important as the data collected over time would be monitored to understand if any interventions would be working. Lastly, statistics help with any finalized reports based on the findings that were captured by the researchers. These approaches are used in many health promotion interventions such as the study of Diez et al. (2012). This randomized control trial in this study highlights the importance and relevance of statistical data during the experiment, initiating healthy behaviors from these students (Diez et al., 2012).

In my future career, I know that statistics will be very important. I either would want to go into medicine or work for the New York State Department of Health. I know that if I were a doctor, I could use statistics in clinical data, helping me understand the probability of disease for patients. In the New York State Department of Health, I know that there are job postings that are for epidemiology but for tracking disease data. Tracking disease trends would help me initiate any health interventions in the future to help me stop the spread of the disease. Either way, I am more than prepared to learn about this matter and master it to the best of my ability!