Prerequisites: SPHBS851 or 852. - This course examines the history of race and racism in the development and practice of biostatistics. We will: Study the foundations of demography and race as a categorization and social construct; Recount histories of Galton, Pearson, Fisher, and others as founders of biostatistics and proponents of eugenics; Examine the development of fundamental biostatistics methods (correlation analysis, regression, hypothesis testing) within the context of the times and beliefs of the founders of the field; Deconstruct the implications of race as a covariate or predictor in a model; Explore the impact of racism encoded in collected data and how to mitigate or overcome this bias; Discuss how statistics are wielded in modern discourse surrounding race and reflect on our authority and responsibility as data analysts

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