The Biostatistics Core offers complimentary statistical support for approved Student Training in Approaches to Research (STAR) projects through the St. Albert’s day presentation. These services include study design, database design, analysis, and co-authorship of refereed materials.

Following St. Albert’s day, analysis services for the approved STAR project may continue for students who subsequently enter the Research Honors program.  The timeline for additional data analysis following St. Albert’s day must be agreed upon with the statistician and be completed within the academic year.

Other non-STAR research projects involving medical student researchers may receive statistical support services at an agreed upon rate.

Students may request Biostatistics services using our online request form.  The Biostatistics Core meets weekly to review new requests and assign statisticians to projects.  Students can expect contact from an assigned statistician within five to seven business days from submission.

Requirements for support:

• The principal investigator assumes full responsibility for the study activities and evaluation of human subjects, and for the integrity of the research data and results. As such, the PI is required to attend the initial consultation and strongly encouraged to attend all follow-up meetings.  Students will need to reschedule the initial consultation if the PI is unable to attend.
• Statisticians promptly begin analysis services after all data collection activities are completed. If an interim analysis is pre-planned, those services will be provided as outlined in the protocol.  The Biostatistics Core requests no less than 30 days for a thorough analysis of study data.  Data collection activities must be completed four weeks prior to abstract submission to allow enough time to prepare a quality analysis report. 
• Projects that require substantial biostatistician effort must be reviewed and approved by the STAR program director and CRO executive steering committee. For questions about project scope of work, please contact Cara Joyce (cjoyce6@luc.edu).
• The statistician will access study data on Loyola’s secure REDCap service. If students do not use REDCap to store data, they may send a clean data file with accompanying data dictionary using Loyola’s Secure File Transfer Protocol: https://securetransfer.luc.edu/.  Importantly, before the statistician may receive study data, he/she must be a named research team member on the project application to the Institutional Review Board.