In order to contact us, please fill out our Biostatistical Request Form and we will get back to you as soon as possible. Alternatively, contact Marcos (marcos.sanches@camh.ca).
We have been providing statistical consulting work to researchers at CAMH for several years. Over this time, we have had not only successfull collaborations but also engaging and rewarding interactions with CAMH research community. Most of our consulting work is free of charge and it covers all areas of reseach.
Here is a list of areas where our services have been often requested:
Grant Proposals
Grant Proposal is a crucial part of a study and you need to get your stats right there! We can assist with study design, sample size calculation and description of statistical analyses. We can also help in the process of thinking about the proposal in general, which measures to use and to control for, what are the limitations of different approaches, what are the best alternative designs given constraints and more. We can also be an extra pair of eyes going over the statistical aspects of your proposal and offering suggestions.
Data Analysis
If you are conducting a data analysis for a project at CAMH we may be able to assist in different ways. The most common is that we help you to ensure you are using a propoer model and statistical test, as well as interpreting results properly. In exploratory analyses, we may be able to think along with you about ways to explore and present your data. We can also offer assitance wtih use of software and scripts.
Statistical Software
We may be able to assist you to navigate through different issues that you may have when using software for your statistical analysis. We have expertise in R, SAS, SPSS, STATA and Mplus, among other less common software.
Statistical Education
In our consulting activities, we often go over statistical concepts. Our focus is always to not only get you to do your data analysis properly, but also get you to understand and be comfortable with what you are doing, including being able to explain it to others. Even if allyou want is to get a regression model to run, we will still have this goal of ensuring that you get exposed to the statistical background needed to understand what you are doing. Most of the time we are able to do that without getting into any complicated math.
Our view is that statistical education that goes beyond showing how to do something in a software is crucial for the development of research skills and for the quality of future research at CAMH. That means that we are never shy of getting into the statistical concepts as much as needed, and of doing research so that we ourselves understand the concepts that you are using, if we still dont dominate them.
Manuscript
One of the most important part of doing good science is to write a good paper. For us that means explaining well your methodology so that the reader can understand your approach. Basically, you want a statistician who is reading your paper to be happy with the information you provide! That is vital for the transparence needed in science, for reproducibility of your research and for the accessment of the level of evidence embedded in your results. That is all to say that we can help you with your manuscript so that it is statistically sound.
But that is not all. We can also help you interpret resutls from other publixhed texts, or help you to replicate them. We can review your statistical methods and point to things that reviewers may criticize. We can also help you reply to reviewers once we have a good grasp on what you did.